Cast Defends Four Re-Shoots

Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis, who co-star in Fantastic Four, defended the film and director Tim Story against rumors that last-minute re-shoots were necessary to salvage the comic-book-based SF film. "Every movie has additional shots and so called 're-shoots,'" Alba, who plays Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, said during a July 6 press conference in support of the film. "Because when you see the final product, you're like ... "

Chiklis, who portrays Ben Grimm/The Thing, finished Alba's sentence: "''It'd be good to have a little bit of this here.'"

Alba added: "Right. So there was no controversy on that end. Really, I think, from the beginning, we ... had a release date before we started shooting. And to make that date and to make the movie as good as we could possibly make it on a schedule was really, I think, the most difficult part. That all fell on Tim Story's shoulders, who I think finished everything two weeks ago and didn't get a lot of sleep."

Chiklis picked up Alba's point, stressing that Story and all involved faced "tremendous pressure" to ready the movie in time for its imminent debut. "And obviously we were well aware of the history of this franchise and how many people loved it and would be anticipating it," he said. "We also knew that there would be a lot of conjecture out there, out in the ether. You can't really get preoccupied with that, because people are talking without seeing, without knowing. Like, re-shoots is a perfect example. There was all this, 'Uh-oh, things are in trouble because they're doing re-shoots.'"

Chiklis added: "Well, they didn't know that we needed a little connector shot for the green screen here so that we could make this transition smoother. It wasn't like we were re-doing scenes and altering plot lines or anything. It was just little enhancements of like, 'Yeah. This would be great.' It's thickening the broth and making it better. So you read these things, and you go, 'Ah, whatever. They'll see it when they see it.' I think that they're going to love it." Fantastic Four opens July 8.