‘Fantastic Four’ Director Josh Trank Slams His Own Movie

As negative reviews piled on his critically-savaged, schadenfreude-ridden Fantastic Four, director Josh Trank took to Twitter on Thursday to suggest that his 20th Century Fox studio overlords were responsible for the perplexingly awful cut of the superhero reboot set to hit theaters Friday.

“A year ago I had a fantastic version of this,” Trank tweeted from his verified account. “And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”

The sad Trank tweet didn’t last long online before it was deleted for unknown reasons, although keen-eyed Twitter watchers archived it for posterity.

It marked a rare public statement from the embattled 31-year-old director, who’s denied reports that his erratic behavior and messy dogs caused drama during filming on Fantastic Four and lost him a high-profile gig directing the next Star Wars stand-alone flick.

Trank (with Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater) also wrote the $122 million blockbuster, which mounts a promising ensemble character drama before completely falling apart in a hot mess of truncated plot and empty CGI action.

Behind-the-scenes rumors had it that Fox execs freaked out over a lack of action in Trank’s original cut, prompting headline-grabbing reshoots. The disjointedness is so apparent in the final cut, it’s entirely possible Trank’s version would have been more of a piece, if not fully “fantastic.”

Regardless: Critics have utterly decimated Fantastic Four, which stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, and Toby Kebbell in the origin tale of Marvel superheroes Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, and The Thing. A sequel has already been dated for 2017, although it remains to be seen if it will come to fruition.