Fantastic Four director explains why one villain was cut, despite the actor's "incredible performance": "It was just so much material"

Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman has opened up about why John Malkovich's Red Ghost was left out of the final cut.

Speaking to Phase Hero's Brandon Davis, Shakman revealed that the opening montage of the Fantastic Four's heroic exploits shown during the Ted Gilbert Show was originally longer, allowing for viewers to see a "sense of history" as Marvel's First Family hit its fourth anniversary.

"We wanted the characters to feel lived-in, we wanted the city to feel lived-in. Part of that was showing all the things they've done along the way: building the Future Foundation, defeating Red Ghost, The Mad Thinker, Mole Man."

Of those, Red Ghost was the main casualty left on the cutting room floor – despite John Malkovich's supervillain being shown in trailers.

"We had an opening that involved a lot of action around the Red Ghost. We had an incredible performance from John Malkovich. It was just so much material when we were trying to sort of get to that present day moment where their world changes when the pregnancy happens," Shakman explained.

On the sequence itself, the director added, "We had Red Ghost trying to steal a rocket ship with his apes, and Reed trying to defeat him and outwitting him. We see snippets of that in the [Ted Gilbert Show] montage, you see him kicking one of the apes in the water."

Fantastic Four: First Steps, starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn, is now in cinemas.

For more of a spoiler-filled breakdown, be sure to head on over to our larger looks at the Fantastic Four: First Steps post-credits scene and Fantastic Four: First Steps ending. And, yes, that is you-know-who at the very end of the film.