The Doomed Journal

By Mark Allyn Sikes

Mark Sikes has written a tell-all journal of the making of his documentary, Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four. In 1992, Roger Corman was approached by Bernd Eichinger, who owned the film option for The Fantastic Four. His option was running out at the end of the year so he went to Corman, the King of the B-Movies,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Sikes
• Release date: Feb 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578604404

Book preview

My Fantastic Four Journal

My old friend, Marty Langford, called me back in 2011 out of the blue to announce that he was going to write a book. He was going to tell the story of the production and eventual demise of B-Movie producer Roger Corman's 1993 film, The Fantastic Four. To comic book fans this was one of the greatest urban legends of all time! Roger spent $1,000,000.00 on his version of this Marvel super-hero property and then never released it! Why? Either nobody knew or nobody was talking. Since I had been the casting assistant for the film, Marty asked me if I would write the chapter on the casting process of the film. I was flattered so I said I was in. What a great idea! Somebody needed to tell this story.

I thought about it more and more, called Marty a week later and yelled, We're idiots! We both went to film school. Instead of a book, why not make a movie? To his credit he didn't even hesitate. He thought it was a great idea and he was right. I think we both believed that a book would be easier. But a documentary would just be a far superior way to tell the story. This was the story of a film no one had ever been allowed to see legally! Of course, it had to be a documentary.

Once we knew what we wanted to do the big dilemma was how to do it. Marty and I had both attended Boston University and been Film majors. Neither of us knew the first thing, however, about making a feature-length documentary. I decided to write down every detail I could recall about Corman's FF. The memories came flooding back to me. I even kept a diary back in the 1990's. I dusted it off to see what I wrote back in 1992 and 1993 about the project. (And, as you see in the doc, I still have the original casting session sign-in sheets!)

On my own initiative I called up Alex Hyde-White, the actor who portrayed Reed Richards a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, and chatted him up about a possible documentary. Looking back, it was a premature call on my part, but I wanted to see what the reaction would be from the cast members about a project from twenty years ago that was never released. Alex was very excited about the project, so I told Marty. He said he was going to plan a budget and outline and get right back to me.

Life stepped in as it often does and almost a full year passed. Marty was the driving force of this venture, so I let him deal with life and other things. I assumed the project was dead in the water. It was okay with me because this early on I wasn't even sure there was an audience for it. The film had never been released so only die-hard fans knew that it had ever been made.

Then I got a call from him in January 2012 saying that he had a great new job, was getting a divorce and wanted to make the documentary. Again, I was on board immediately, but I did explain that we needed to be sure this time. I didn't want to call the other cast members and key crew people only to put things on hold again. I imagine this happens with documentaries all the time because filmmakers need to support themselves and their families while making their films. I just needed to be sure that we didn't flake on people I might still do business with as a casting director and producer in Hollywood. The last thing I wanted was to call Roger Corman, my old boss, and tell him we were making this documentary only to have to call him back and tell him we weren't.

I kept this journal for five long years from the original conversations in 2013 when we ran our disastrous IndieGoGo crowd-funding campaign through shooting later that year with almost no money, all through post-production and finally distribution. I held off publishing because the publicity and distribution stories are incredible and frustrating and educational. From not getting accepted to a single film festival to premiering at San Diego Comicon 2015. Then our eventual theatrical run and release on multiple platforms in 2016 - 2019.

But before I tell you the story of the making of our documentary, I need to fill you in on the original source material and the actual making of the original The Fantastic Four all the way back in 1992 and 1993. I had many jobs on that film, mostly in unofficial capacities and I even have a brief, unrecognizable cameo that we shot one night on Hollywood Boulevard. It's all here. I hope you enjoy it. It's been one hell of a ride. As Roger said, It was one of the strangest experiences in Hollywood. Here's my story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four.

The Super-Secret History of The Fantastic Four

The Fantastic Four comic book originally hit the stands back in November, 1961. It was created by Stan The Man Lee and Jack King Kirby. Both men have claimed the lion's share of the creative credit, but all we are left with today is conflicting accounts over which one was the real brain behind the title that would become the foundation of the Marvel Age of comic books. There was not yet a super-team called The Avengers or a web-slinging Spider-man.

Kirby would illustrate a record-setting 102 issue-run on FF which allowed him, with Lee, to create so many other famous characters within the pages of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. The Black Panther, the Watcher, the Silver Surfer and The Inhumans were among the long-lasting characters that fans still read about in Marvel comics today.

And the villains! Truly one of the greatest galleries of rogues ever to assemble: Doctor Doom, Galactus, The Frightful Four, The Mad Thinker, the Skrulls and the Puppet Master popped up multiple times in those first hundred or so issues to challenge our heroes.

The title definitely suffered in the 1980's with some long, boring runs and uninspiring storytelling. Sean Howe spoke about this at length in his book, Marvel: The Untold Story. As he reports, many of Marvel's properties were suffering in the mid-late 1980's so that was a contributing factor to Marvel selling the option to The Fantastic Four to Bernd Eichinger. Since The Fantastic Four was not a best-seller at this time, the option would be much more affordable than properties such as Spider-man or X-men.

I cannot recommend enough that fans of this subject read Howe's book as it gives a great perspective on the shape of the company and its properties at this time. I probably don't have to remind most of you just what the shape of Marvel's cinematic universe was during the 1980's. DC was having much more success with their Batman and Superman franchises. Marvel was meanwhile making very sketchy versions of Captain America, The Punisher and Spider-man.

The Comic Book Kid

I loved comic books when I was very young. Some of my earliest recollections are of comic books. I loved reading Batman comic books and I never got tired of watching reruns of the Batman TV series. I remember my family spending a week one summer at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire and all I cared about was going to the local drug store and buying some new comic books with the money I had saved. It drove my grandmother crazy how much money and attention I devoted to those stupid funny books.

When I was seven years old my father, Dick Sikes, opened a nostalgia store in our hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts with his girlfriend, Cathy, and named it The Rebel Peddler. It was a tiny store that was meant to give Cathy something to do while my dad ran his other business, a firebrick and pottery supply company called Bay State Firebrick. They maintained both businesses for a number of years, but eventually it just made sense to focus on the business that was going through a boom so Bay State Firebrick was closed, and The Rebel Peddler enjoyed the undivided attention of both of them. And one other person as well.

I began working there as a means of spending time with my dad who had moved out years earlier to live with Cathy. Every weekend of my childhood was spent there, and we began to travel to flea markets and conventions soon after that. Before long I was also heading to the Peddler after school most days.

And it was around this time, the early 1970's, that comic book conventions began to boom as well. They had occurred as early as the 1960's, but they were a fairly rare occurrence and limited to cities like New York and Detroit. We started going to the ones in New York and Boston every month and eventually travelled all over the country to big conventions in every major market.

By the time I was twelve I was buying merchandise of my own and occupying a portion of the tables at conventions. I didn't just want comic books. I also wanted money. How many kids at that age have an opportunity to make serious money? I was reeling in as much as $500.00 at the bigger cons. Yes, I should have been banking it. But instead I was re-investing a large portion of it on more merchandise. In high school I had my own personal inventory worth well over $10,000.00. But that wasn't how I became known as the comic book kid.

I began promoting my own local comic book conventions in nearby Chicopee called Collectocon in 1977! (I was 13.) I would sell tables to the dealers and collect the money and my dad pretty much let me handle things unless problems arose. To my knowledge I was the youngest convention promoter anywhere at that time. Tables cost dealers $10.00 and it cost $1.00 to attend the convention. But we usually sold 40 tables and the room only cost us $300.00 so we were in the black before the first customer walked in the door.

When I was fifteen my father and I self-published the very first non-sport card price guide and began selling it across the country at conventions and via the mail. We would go on to publish five such guides together over the next twelve years and we were considered the national authorities on the subject. We both did the research and sat down many nights to decide prices and overall publishing details.

As you can probably guess I did not play sports during my teen years or participate in most other normal activities for a kid of that age. But I wouldn't have traded it for anything, and I have no regrets looking back on it. There were hundreds of hilarious and harrowing adventures during the twenty years I worked with my father but that's another book altogether.

During our travels around the country I would meet and enjoy the likes of Leonard Maltin, Jim Steranko, Jack Kirby, George Perez, Barry Smith, Neal Adams, Walter Koenig, Bob Kane, Bob Overstreet, William S. Gaines, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Bob Feller, my boyhood hero Carl Yastrzemski and so many others. There wasn't a living baseball player that I hadn't met. Every comic book artist or writer back then was also a collector. Artists Michael Zulli and Mark Masztal were both customers. And those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle guys had a studio just up the road from our store back when everything they did was in black and white.

I had the most unique childhood of anyone I knew. At one convention I would chat with Harlan Ellison about his love of The Yellow Kid and at another I would try not to swoon as Bob Kane told me how he created Batman. I met a boyish George Perez months before his first major work on The New Teen Titans would make him one of the most popular comic book illustrators of all time. And then there was Bert Sugar, the world-famous boxing writer who hired me at the ripe old age of fifteen to do some research for him for a book he was working on.

And on one occasion I had the rare opportunity to meet the King himself, Jack Kirby, the co-creator of The Fantastic Four. I don't talk about this a lot because it was a brief encounter and I had yet to truly appreciate Jack's work. It was stunning to be sure, but how many kids appreciate a Rembrandt when they first see it? I wasn't yet a connoisseur. I read comic books for the fights and the sexy women. I was twelve.

Things were going so well for my dad and the Rebel Peddler that he decided to open a second store. By now the Rebel Peddler had relocated a couple of times. It was out of the downtown area about five miles south very close to where my family lived. So, he opened this second store back in the downtown area in Bay State West, the biggest building in Springfield back then.

Marty and Me

The other half of the Doomed equation came along around the time I was in my early 20's and finishing up at Boston University. I was attending college part-time to save money and driving home for several days a week to pay my bills. I could make a lot more working for my dad than I could at any other job for the same hours. This meant we would need someone at Treasure Island to help when I wasn't there. In walks this gawky guy, still in high school, no car, but with a great personality and solid knowledge of the comic book world. You didn't have to be an expert or a collector to work there, but it sure made the job easier.

Marty worked for us up to and beyond the time I left for California so I can say comfortably that it was a good fit. We became friends and started hanging out almost immediately. I taught him everything I could about the store and the business. He was a very smart kid and all the customers liked him. We shared a love of films, especially horror films, and right before I left for California, we took the train to New York City with his brother to attend the January 1992 Fangoria Convention.

We watched the premiere of a new movie trailer by New Jersey filmmaker Rolfe Kanefsky called There's Nothing Out There. I would later work with Rolfe steadily for eight years in Los Angeles as his casting director. We met actor Jeffrey Combs because we were big fans of Re-Animator and then twenty years later, I would work with him as well on a film titled, Night of the Living Dead 3-D: Re-Animation. He came to my home in Beverlywood for the read-through and I broke out the poster for Re-Animator that he signed for me all those years ago.

Marty worked in video production all over New England for years while I was busy developing my casting and producing career. He would eventually become a Film Studies professor at American International College in Springfield where he teaches still. I even cast a film he wrote a few years before we began work on Doomed. Most of our contact was via phone and email, but when I came home, we made sure to spend time together catching up.

When I flew home to attend my mother's funeral, Marty was one of the pallbearers. He was not just a friend, but a part of my family. Even my brothers liked him. Finding anyone that my entire family got along with was a rare thing, which is why when he called me to talk about a book and then a film, I never hesitated.

Roger and Me

For anyone who doesn't know Roger's legend in Hollywood, he began producing low budget films in the 1950's and would go on to produce and/or direct hundreds of these films for the next 70 years. He is as famous for his frugal budgets as he is for launching the careers of many famous actors, directors and producers. Ron Howard, James Cameron, Jack Nicholson and Jonathan Demme are just a few of the people that got their start with Corman. Even though the majority of his films were made on tiny budgets, he received an Academy Award in 2009 in honor of his lifetime of producing films.

I never planned to be one of the stars of our documentary, Doomed, but since Marty independently decided to include so much footage from my interview, I think this is the perfect place to lay some groundwork for my enthusiasm for the project when it was announced by Corman. Who could have guessed that two comic book shop employees from Springfield, Massachusetts would one day produce and direct a feature-length documentary about a Roger Corman movie based on The Fantastic Four?

What exactly did I do on the original film? Let's set the record straight so you have a frame of reference. I had a lot of little things to do with The Fantastic Four. There were people who did more on the film and there were people who did less. I'll give you the details of my involvement and you can judge for yourself. Let me just say going in that I did anything and everything that they let me do and most of it I did for free.

My official capacity at Roger's production company was Office Manager. I had recently graduated from intern to paid receptionist and I wasted no time in taking advantage of Roger's frugality. While the receptionist job was okay with me, I wanted more, and I knew the way to climb the ladder quickest was to make myself indispensable. It was for this reason that I sat down with Goly Jamshidi, Roger's Chief Financial Officer, someone I have always considered a friend, and asked her if she would make me the Office Manager if I increased my responsibilities while expecting no extra compensation. I knew Roger wasn't going to pay his receptionist more money just because they volunteered for a few more responsibilities. That wasn't how the company worked. But by taking on more work I was hoping to impress Roger and show him my dedication to the company.

Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four

For the record, German film producer Bernd Eichinger obtained the rights to a movie adaptation of The Fantastic Four in the mid-80's and his option was going to expire on December 31st, 1992. If that happened, he would lose his investment (rumored to be around $400,000.00) as well as all future rights to the property. Make the film by the end of '92 and he retained the rights and made whatever money he could on the film he produced. So, after years of shopping it around Hollywood to no avail, a desperate Eichinger resorted to Roger Corman to help him out of his bind.

Roger was not only a Hollywood Legend for making movies for very little money, he was also famous for making them quickly. If there was one man who could go into production on a low-budget film in 90 days, it was Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger knew it. But we at the company had no idea what the deal was between Roger and Bernd. We just knew we were about to produce a super-hero film!

Because this was a co-production and because it was a super-hero film based on one of the most popular comic books in the world, it seemed that this might just be the one to open big. And that was what everyone at Concorde-New Horizons was hoping for. Everyone wanted to escape the stigma of releasing nothing but direct-to-video genre films so we were not hard to convince that The Fantastic Four would be that one film; that one exception that made us all proud.

FF Development

The first time I heard about the project was the day Steve Rabiner came up to me with a copy of the first draft of the script. Steve was one of Roger's in-house producers who also had a law degree. He was serving as a producer for Roger on FF.

He knew of my history with comic books and wanted my notes. I thought he was handing me a copy of some other studio's production of the property at first and I told him this. I asked a lot of questions that he couldn't answer yet, but he did assure me that we are making this film and not some other studio and we were going to make the best film possible on the budget we would be given. I took it home that night and devoured it. The very idea that I would get to work on a comic book movie this soon after arriving in L.A. was a dream come true. I had not yet begun to do the math in my head. A Roger Corman budget divided by four super-heroes and two villains is tough math. That's a lot of super-hero for our low-budget buck. There was a good reason that people shied away from properties based on team books back then. Without the benefit of CGI it was virtually impossible to make these movies look good. You were more likely to end up with something akin to Legends of the Super-Heroes. Great for the campy 70's but not okay in the post-Burton Batman world we were living in.

I would stay in the loop on future drafts of the script since I was the only bona fide comic book geek at the company. I was the ideal test audience and they knew it. And the best part as Roger was concerned was that I was free. He was paying me to answer his phones at this point. But if they handed you a script, you did notes. That was just the way it worked there. And I had no complaints about it.

FF Casting

Laura Schiff was our Head of Casting. It was my hope to take over that position when she was ready to move on. While I was fulfilling my office manager duties, I would often have an intern cover phones for a couple of hours while I took on the role of casting assistant. Roger would not pay for Laura to have an assistant even though we were often casting two films in one month. She relied on interns or me to assist in her office and I had a background in theatre, so I was the most obvious choice to read with the actors.

I was the official casting assistant and read with actors during the casting sessions and callbacks. I also helped schedule the casting sessions for Laura. I was privy to the conversations about casting the film, but Laura was the one who made all of the offers to talent and handled negotiations.

We often saw the same great actors for project after project until we ultimately found a role for them. Joseph Culp had just read for us the previous month for Carnosaur and been a callback. He almost booked that film and if he had, we would not have brought him in for The Fantastic Four. We used actors over and over but not in consecutive films. That would make it harder to sell to foreign and domestic buyers because they didn't want multiple films in the same market with the same exact casts. So, although he probably didn't know it at the time, it was a blessing in disguise for Joseph that Carnosaur