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You may remember, way back in February, that the first trailer for Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps featured a particularly notable shot of John Malkovich in the midst of everything else… only for the character to completely disappear for every other trailer and promotional shot from the movie. Turns out, there’s a good reason for that: he’s not actually in the movie.

“There was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie, and some things had to go,” director Matt Shakman told Variety about cutting Malkovich out of the movie after he’d already appeared in that first trailer. “John is one of my favorite humans and one of my biggest inspirations. It was heartbreaking not to include him.”

According to Variety, Malkovich was playing the Red Ghost in a sequence early on in the movie. Had he appeared, he would have been the third FF villain to appear in the movie, as Marvel Studios has already confirmed — and released images of — the Mole Man in addition to Galactus, who’s expected to be the primary threat in the movie. Of course, despite assurances to the contrary, there is still considerable speculation that Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom will also make an appearance at some point in the film.

Maybe there simply wasn’t space for the Red Ghost, even if he was one of the FF’s earliest comic book threats. (He first appeared in Fantastic Four #13, back in 1963, fact fiends.)

For his part, Shakman is downplaying the idea that First Steps is being reworked in any sizable manner before its release: “We definitely made some changes to narrative stuff, but it wasn’t major,” he told Variety, adding, “We were using fine sandpaper the whole time.” Tell that to John Malkovich.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be released July 25.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.