The deleted scene Vanessa Kirby was “gutted” to see cut: “I just loved it”
Being part of a massive superhero film means that there’s inevitably going to be tough days on set, but Vanessa Kirby was particularly disappointed that a major scene in The Fantastic Four: First Steps was cut from the final release.
It’s been no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a tough break in the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, as the latest phases of the series have been hitting a repetitive cycle with critics and audiences. In fact, the complex process in which the films are made, often involving extensive reshoots and underdeveloped scripts, has been described by some of its alumni as “soul-crushing”.
It was a minor miracle that, in spite of these challenges, The Fantastic Four: First Steps ended up being a very good film that initiated some appropriate anticipation for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. It was particularly impressive given how many attempts there have been to bring Marvel’s ‘first family’ to the big screen; although the Tim Story films from 2005 and 2007, respectively, were met with tepid reviews, 2015’s Fantastic Four is considered to be one of the biggest disasters in film history.
The acclaim for The Fantastic Four: First Steps was mostly directed at the cast, who managed to breathe life into characters that have delighted comic book readers since the 1960s. Unfortunately, while there wasn’t a weak link, Vanessa Kirby was singled out for her empathetic portrayal of Sue Storm, a brave hero who is also burned by the responsibilities of motherhood.
First Steps is arguably one of the more domestic MCU films, as there is plenty of time spent with Sue and her husband, Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards, in between their excursions saving the world. However, Kirby admitted to Collider that there was one scene between her and Mole Man, played by Paul Walter Hauser, that was cut from the final release.
Although Mole Man is initially introduced as a supervillain, he ends up developing a friendly reputation with the Fantastic Four and even helps them in defeating Ralph Ineson’s Galactus. The deleted scene involved a pregnant Sue sharing a drink with her former nemesis, even though she isn’t able to consume whiskey, which involved Kirby and Hauser visiting the mines of England to shoot the scene on a real location, but “there just wasn’t time” in the final edit.
“It just represented Sue’s working life and the fact that she interacts with all these supervillains and is easy with them,” Kirby told Collider, adding, “She sees eye to eye and is emotionally in tune with them, and I love that.”
The actor admitted that the scene “was so much fun to shoot” and expressed her hope that a similar moment could appear in the film’s sequel; however, the odds that a follow-up to First Steps is in the works are slightly slimmer than they may have been a few months prior. While the film grossed a respectable $520million globally, it’s unclear if it was ultimately profitable for Disney, considering the astronomical production and marketing costs.
Kirby and the rest of her co-stars are set to show up in Avengers: Doomsday, a massive crossover event that will bring together generations of different superheroes, including those from the Fox X-Men saga. If the battle between Robert Downey Jr’s Victor Von Doom and the surviving Avengers is indeed as epic as Marvel clearly wants it to be, then Sue definitely deserves the chance to share a drink with Mole Man, and now that she’s had her baby, it can be real whiskey too.
