Fox Removes 2005 And 2007 ‘Fantastic Four’ Movies From Amazon And iTunes
Fans who were planning on rewatching theFantastic Fourmovies from 2005 and 2007 had better find physical copies. 20th Century Fox has removed the film from two of the world’s leading streaming sites,AmazonandiTunes. The reason isn’t malicious. They simply don’t want fans to get confused when they hopefully start to look for information on theFantastic Fourreboot that opens August 7, directed byJosh Trank. Read more about the journey of the originalFantastic Fourmovies below.
The Hollywood Reporterfirst notice and reported the news. Their source said the reason for removing the films is to not distract from the new movie, which is “seeking to establish a different tone than the previous releases.” Once the new film is available on those platforms, probably in the Fall or Winter, Fox plans on putting 2005’sFantastic Four and 2007 sequelFantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surferback online.
Many will be quick to jump down the throat of Fox and liken this action to the factMarvel Comics has all but removedtheFantastic Fourfrom their pages. Even some of the X-Men have been taken down a notch because Fox owns the movie rights and not Marvel, and the characters have been taken out of merch (such as t-shirts bearing original Secret Wars art) that once featured the mutants. However, this is not something that’s being done out of spite. It makes absolutely smart business sense.
Here’s a scenario. Someone sees a commercial for a newFantastic Fourfilm on TV and heads to Google. Maybe they were unaware or forgot about the 2005 film. They get confused. They download the 2005 film, and it sucks. Will that person be heading to the theater to see the new movie? No. Fast forward six months. Another person wants to see that newFantastic Fourmovie they missed in theaters and do a quick search. They find two films and click the wrong one. Fox just made money on that old movie because it shares a title with the new one.
Plus theFantastic Fourmovies aren’t going totally away during this time. They’re still available to rent on disc on Netflix, buy on Amazon and air on TV. They just won’t be streaming for a few months.
There was no word on updated availability of the Roger Corman, Oley Sassone, orArrested Developmentversions of the film.
