he teamed with B-movie specialist Roger Corman, who agreed to produce the film on a $1 million budget, to be released by his distribution company New Horizons Pictures. Production began on December 28, 1992, under direction of music video director Oley Sassone, lasting for 21 days or 25 days. Storyboards were drawn by artist Pete Von Sholly. The movie was shot on the Concorde Pictures sound stage in Venice, California, as well as in Agoura, California for a spacecraft-crash scene, the Loyola Marymount University campus for a lab-explosion scene, and the former Pacific Stock Exchange building in downtown Los Angeles for team-meeting scenes. Costume designer Réve Richards recalled in 1993 going to Golden Apple Comics on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles to buy Fantastic Four comic books for research. Upon explaining his task, "these people in the store just swarmed me and said, 'You are going to be faithful to it?' And I told them, 'This is why I am buying these books.'" Paul Ahern was hired as weapons consultant, and Scott Billups for computer visual effects. The special-effects makeup was by John Vulich and Everett Burrell of Optic Nerve. Stuntman Carl Ciarfalio, who wore a rubber suit to portray the monstrous superhero Thing, worked with actor Michael Bailey Smith, who played the Thing's human self, Ben Grimm, so that their mannerisms would match. During the months of post-production, music composers David and Eric Wurst personally contributed $6,000 to finance a 48-piece orchestra for the soundtrack. Marketing and release plans A 1993 magazine article gave a tentative release date of Labor Day weekend 1993. During that summer, trailers ran in theaters and on the video release of Corman's Carnosaur and Little Miss Millions. The cast members hired a publicist, at their own expense, to help promote the film at a clips-screening at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and at the San Diego Comic-Con International, and the film appeared as a cover story on an issue of Film Threat magazine. By this time, the world premiere was announced to take place at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, on January 19, 1994, with proceeds from the event earmarked for the charities Ronald McDonald House and Children's Miracle Network. Suddenly, the premiere was halted, the actors received a cease and desist order on all promotion from the producers, and the studio confiscated the negatives. Eichinger then informed Sassone that the