After yesterday’s post about Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four movie, my pal — and a fine comics illustrator — Ron Weaver commented on Facebook to remind me of the documentary about Tim Burton’s ill-fated Superman film starring Nicolas Cage. Another ahead of its time comics movie that never saw the light of day, Superman Lives has been neatly documented and celebrated by the illuminating The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? I remember finding out about the film when it was still raising funds, but had lost track of its progress. Now it’s available on YouTube…

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Flipping some stories into {R}emnants yesterday, I came across some breaking superhero cinema news that immediately found me re-visiting a blog post from 2013. The story was about Roger Corman’s 1990′s Fantastic Four movie. Here’s Comic Book Resources with the breaking news followed by some of my original commentary…

Fans will finally get learn exactly what went on behind the scenes during filming of 1994′s failed “Fantastic Four” adaptation. “Doomed,” the documentary telling the story of the film, will arrive on video-on-demand on Oct. 11 and DVD on Dec. 20.

The documentary tells the story of the 1994 “Fantastic Four” adaptation, directed by Oley Sassone (whose most notable other credit is directing five episodes of “Xena: Warrior Princess”) and produced by Roger Corman (“Little Shop of Horrors”) and Bernd Eichinger (2005′s “Fantastic Four”). The film was never officially released, leaving its interesting history long surrounded in mystery.

And from the original post…

The Fantastic Four is an unreleased independent superhero film completed in 1994. Executive produced by low-budget specialist Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger (who went on to produce a big-budget Fantastic Four film in 2005), the film was based on Marvel Comics’ long-running comic book and featured the origin of the Fantastic Four and that superhero team’s first battle with the evil Doctor Doom, combining the superteam’s origin from The Fantastic Four #1 and Doom’s origin from Fantastic Four Annual #2 with original elements.

…Speculation arose that the film had never been intended for release, but had gone into production solely as a way for Eichinger to retain rights to the characters; Stan Lee said in 2005 that this was indeed the case, insisting, “The movie was never supposed to be shown to anybody,” and adding that the cast and crew had been left unaware.

This flick is particularly interesting given the dismal ‘Four films that have actually been showcased in feature releases. Here’s what Film Threat‘s Clint Morris had to say about this bare-bones production…

“Yes it’s terribly low-budget and yes it’s derisorily campy and feebly performed, but at the same time there’s also something inquiringly irresistible about this B comic tale that makes you wonder why it didn’t get a release somewhere along the line. Even if it does resemble Toxic Avenger [more so] than say, Spider-Man … The script isn’t actually all that bad and some of the actors—notably Michael Bailey Smith—are actually quite good here, and with an extra polish I think they might have been able to release this thing.”

However, it was never to be. Who cares, it’s still a delight. Here’s The Fantastic Four (1994)…

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On Friday night I was online, drinking my wine/tea beverage (3 parts soda water to red wine and a bag of hibiscus tea beverage) and looking for a good movie on TV at the same time. I flipped over to THIS and found a great 1970 post apocalyptic comedy directed by Roger Corman. Here’s the Wiki…

Gas-s-s-s (also known as Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It) is a 1970 motion picture produced and released by American International Pictures. It was producer Roger Corman’s final film for AIP, after a long association. He was unhappy because AIP made several cuts to the film without his approval, including removing the final shot where God commented on the action – a shot which Corman regarded as one of the greatest he had made in his life.

The movie is a post-apocalyptic dark comedy, about survivors of an accidental military gas leak, of an experimental agent that kills everyone on Earth over the age of twenty-five. (A cartoon title sequence shows a John Wayne-esque Army General announcing — and denouncing — the “accident”; the story picks up after the victims have died.)

Here’s Gas-s-s-s…

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