Search results
With Vanessa Kirby, Pedro Pascal, Julia Garner, Joseph Quinn. One of Marvel's most iconic families makes it back to the big screen, the Fantastic Four.
- Matt Shakman
- 2025-07-25
- Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
- Ralph Ineson, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby
May 16, 2024 · Fantastic Four is expected to begin filming in summer 2024, with plans to hit theaters July 24, 2025. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm are officially joining the MCU....
- Devan Coggan
- 40 sec
Feb 14, 2024 · The Fantastic Four is the latest MCU film to undergo a release date shake-up, as it is now set to release on Friday, July 25, 2025. That means that The Fantastic Four has essentially...
- Matt Shakman
- Senior Resource Writer
- How the movie can take advantage of the MCU's biggest weakness.
- Ranking the Phase 4 Marvel Movies and Shows From Worst to Best
By Clint Gage
Updated: Feb 17, 2024 12:58 am
Posted: Feb 14, 2024 10:26 pm
If there’s one thing Phases 4 and 5 of the MCU have made clear, it’s that nothing really matters. In particular, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness proved that Marvel's plans can make room for deaths, resurrections, recastings, and yellow chair-ifying of old familiar friends. They can all happen and then un-happen in the course of a Disney+ series. While the effective removal of the idea of “mortal peril” has hamstrung some of the franchise's recent efforts, a lack of meaningful stakes in the MCU is actually great news for Fantastic Four. And the vintage TV / greeting card from the atomic age aesthetic of Marvel’s official cast announcement is cause to be even more hopeful. This is not about the names. Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, and Vanessa Kirby (who I believe to be the best choice of the four) is a great group of talent, but if Fantastic Four is to succeed, it’ll be more likely thanks to a complete and total lack of Multiverse Saga baggage.
The challenge for the post-Endgame MCU has continually been an issue of living up to the conclusion of the Infinity Saga. If anything, they’ve tried way too hard to sell the importance of the Multiverse Saga as a worthy successor. Looking at this casting announcement is encouraging because if Marvel’s First Family needs a standalone Cold War-era, space-race, maybe-comedy treatment to efficiently establish themselves, then that’s literally all Shakman and company need to do. Because pretty much anything is possible thanks to the existence of infinite universes; the filmmakers can pick any story they want to present this new iteration. Maybe, for the sake of argument, they only want to borrow from one issue of Fantastic Four: Life Story, the decades-spanning miniseries from Mark Russell and Sean Izaakse. Fine! That's all you need. The point here is Fantastic Four only needs to concern itself with introducing engaging new versions of these characters with whatever story does that most effectively.
If the film is indeed set in the 1960s, or ideally some corner of the multiverse where it’s currently the 1960s, Fantastic Four might find itself completely unburdened by the baggage of Phases 4 and 5. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania — they all fell apart in the moments where concerns for the greater MCU took over, and the film we were currently watching took a backseat. To be fair, this isn’t a recent concern for Kevin Feige. You can go all the way back to Iron Man 2, just the third film in what was then still an experiment, to see what happens when setting up the future becomes a priority ahead of making a good movie. Avengers: Age of Ultron suffered from the same thing.
If the film is indeed set in the 1960s, Fantastic Four might find itself completely unburdened by the baggage of Phases 4 and 5.
“
So what can Fantastic Four do to avoid the same fate? Wedged into Phase 6, less than a year before the now decidedly NOT Dynastic Avengers 5, it seems impossible to think that the film won’t do a lot of narrative heavy lifting, but what if it doesn’t? Look at the Guardians of the Galaxy. Theirs has always been a story of doing things out on their own and, as a result, the franchise actually showed continued success past their involvement in Endgame, a feat nearly all the other Avengers seem to have struggled with. If Shakman can take a similar approach with Fantastic Four, the film will have a real shot at being good.
Make it a smaller story, one set far away from anything we’ve seen so far in the MCU. Again, the ’60s vibes of the announcement artwork seem to be doing that. Use the creative blank check afforded by the whole idea of a multiverse and set it in a different universe or timeline or dimension altogether. That way you don’t even need to waste screen time explaining why they weren’t there to fight Thanos. And for God’s sake, keep the villain minor. As much as everybody is thirsty for Doctor Doom or Galactus, setting up a Thanos-level big bad in this Fantastic Four movie who then carries over into a team-up film would be a mistake. It’s one added layer of storytelling that pulls focus away from the heroes. Teasing bigger bads is what we have post-credit scenes for.
- Clint Gage
Feb 14, 2024 · Will Marvel Studio's upcoming reboot break the curse? From release date to casting rumors, here’s everything we know about the latest Fantastic Four movie.
Sep 10, 2022 · Entertainment. Marvel. Everything we know about Marvel’s new Fantastic Four movie. Sorry, but John Krasinski is probably not gonna be Mr. Fantastic again. By Petrana Radulovic Updated Sep 10,...
People also ask
When does 'the Fantastic Four' release?
Will there be a new Fantastic Four movie?
Will there be a Fantastic Four movie in 2025?
When is 'the Fantastic Four' coming to the big screen?
Apr 20, 2024 · After several years in development and pre-production at Marvel Studios, The Fantastic Four is finally coming to the big screen in 2025. Here's all we know.
