John Malkovich won't be making an appearance in The Fantastic Four: First Steps after all. Following a screenshot of the actor in the movie, and the announcement he'd be playing one of the team's first major villains in Red Ghost, it appeared that his role was all but locked in.
But, director Matt Shakman recently revealed to Variety that Malkovich's time as Ivan Kragoff was cut entirely. Malkovich's time came early on in the movie, when it would showcase the early years of the Fantastic Four and the villains they fought.
However, there simply wasn't the time or space for this sequence. "There were a lot of things that ultimately ended up hitting the cutting room floor," Shakman said. "When we were building a '60s retro-future world, introducing all of these villains, introducing these four main characters as a group, as well as individually, introducing the idea of a child — there was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie and some things had to go ultimately in terms of shaping the film for its final version."
"It was heartbreaking not to include him in the final version of the movie because he's one of my very favourite humans and one of my biggest inspirations," Shakman continued. "As a person who walks the line between theatre and film and television, there's no one who is more inspiring."
Last month, we reported on Malkovich's potential absence, alongside other cast members like Paul Walter Houser and Natasha Lyonne. We'll have to see if all of those appearances have been left on the cutting room floor, too.