Fourth Time’s The Charm With Fantastic Four Reimagination That Leads Directly Into ‘Avengers: Doomsday’

It’s not often that a director gets invited to play around with a massive superhero universe, much less twice, but for director Matt Shakman, his second trip into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a departure from his original tenure with Marvel Studios, when he directed the Disney+ series, WandaVision (2021).

The longtime television director, who directed all nine episodes of the series which marked the MCU’s first foray into television, gets to reboot Marvel Comics’ The Fantastic Four after two previous failed big-screen live-action incarnations (three if you count producer Roger Corman’s unreleased 1994 version, and four if you count that there was a sequel for the second attempt) for the MCU. 

But instead of the film taking place in the MCU’s Sacred Timeline, or main universe aka Earth 616, the events of The Fantastic Four: First Steps occur on Earth 828 in a separate reality, and there are no references to any existing events or characters from the massive 17-year-old franchise. In other words, audiences don’t have to watch or read up on over 550 hours of content to get up to speed on things.

Which gave Shakman, a long-time fan of Marvel Comics’ First Family,  a chance to get things right from the start, without the need to launch off an origin story for the superhero quartet.

“Yeah, I’m a huge Fantastic Four fan. Have been since I was a kid, so it was an honour to get to bring these characters to the MCU,” said the 49-year-old former child actor during a press conference for the movie, which marks the 37th overall film in the MCU, and the first film in Phase Six of the franchise. 

While the first two live-action incarnations were from 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios couldn’t include them in the MCU until parent company Disney acquired Fox in 2019, and by this time, another origin story would be counter-productive. Instead, the decision for the latest version was to bring the family back to the 1960s, as an homage to the comics which debuted in 1961. In fact, the reference to Earth 828 is also a tribute to Fantastic Four comic book artist and Marvel Comics’ legend Jack Kirby, who was born on 28 August 1917 – 828 (in the United States, the month precedes the date when writing in numerical form). 

“They’re such public figures.  They’re sort of the leading lights of their age and their era that we would’ve heard about them if they were in the regular Marvel timeline.  So we had to put them on a different universe and a different earth, which meant we had the chance to build this retro-future 1960s.”

And building a retro-futuristic 1960s aesthetic wasn’t new to Shakman, who learned from his time on WandaVision when the series revisited the different eras of sitcom television.

“The same energy and effort that we put into WandaVision to build all these specific sitcom realities, we put into building this incredibly authentic 1960s retro-future world that was a combination of Jack Kirby and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.”

Though it might seem counterintuitive to build a new universe when there is already an established one as his playground, the approach was supported by Marvel Studios’ head, Kevin Feige.

“We had a refrain that Matt would often use about, ‘There’s no homework required’.  Everything you need to know about the Fantastic Four, you learn in the first 10 minutes of this movie, which is, they’re a family, and they’re humans, and they’re emotional, and they have flaws, and they love each other, and they want to help,” says Feige.

“Vanessa [Kirby] said it’s counter-culture, which is totally right.  And it’s sort of also counter-culture to take these very cool characters, and Pedro Pascal, who’s arguably the coolest human alive, and make him cool in this movie because he’s smart.  

And it was the combination of Shakman, his world building and the story that focused on family over the superpowers of heroes that drew the cast, led by Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us) as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby (The Crown) as his pregnant wife Sue Storm / Invisible Woman, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) as Ben Grimm / The Thing, and Joseph Quinn, (Stranger Things Season 4) as Sue’s younger brother, Johnny Storm / Human Torch.

“The first conversations Matt and I had were, you know, he already had for years had a vision of putting it into the ’60s.  And I remember being so blown away because the idea of trying to distil decades of stories into one movie for 2025, I mean, how do you choose?”, recalls Kirby.

“I think Matt was so clear about that being at the heart of the comics as well as fundamentally wanting to tell a story about two parents and the fears that they have when their baby is coming along.”

In building that family and friendship amongst the four actors, kismet also played a small part. Quinn was offered the role of Johnny, previously played by two MCU stars before they entered the franchise – Chris Evans and Michael B. Jordan – when he was filming Gladiator II alongside Pascal. Filming took place between June 2023 and January 2024, with a gap caused by the 2023 Hollywood labour disputes.  

“I had a walk with Pedro when we were doing the actors’ strike.  And I was in London and I was telling him about this offer that I had for this role, and I was very excited. And we walked from his hotel to my flat.  And you were very gracious and very supportive.  And it was a big opportunity for me, so I was very excited about doing it,” says Quinn of Pascal, who chimed in by adding, “And (I was) swallowing my envy.”

And as fate would have it, Quinn later learned that Pascal was in the running for the role of Reed, and there was a text exchange where, well, nothing was said.

“There was a text exchange, that Joe goes, ‘Psst.’,  and I go, ‘Shh’,  and he goes, ‘You shh’.” says Pascal, to laughs from those in attendance at the press conference.

“When the wheels were in motion, I came up to him in Malta. I was like, ‘Are you gonna do it?’,  and he was like, ‘I think I’m gonna do it’.  And I was just delighted.  We got on so well in Malta and doing Gladiator II together, and so the prospect of doing this, going on this journey together, you know, there are worse people, far, far worse people to walk down a road with, I’d say,” explains Quinn.

Perhaps what’s fantastical about this journey is that The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the fourth version of Marvel’s first superhero family, opens in the same month as Superman, the fourth live-action version of DC Comics’ first superhero, and both are tracking well with audiences. James Gunn’s new take on the iconic hero has grossed over US$400 million globally, and Shakman’s iteration is tracking to perform as well, if not slightly better than Superman, in the coming weeks. 

Both have been viewed by fans as being faithful to the comic book source material, in their own respective ways, and it helps that the writers have had over 70 years of comic book stories to mine, including modern takes that stay faithful to the original incarnation, without angering the fan base.

There’s no greater example than in Kirby’s Sue Storm, who is more than just a force-field-wielding scientist, but also an excellent political diplomat, loving partner, emotionally grounded leader, and most importantly, a pregnant mother. As the star shared during the global press conference, “It always seemed to me kind of revolutionary to have this mother at the centre of this family, but also be absolutely part of the team, never left at home on her own.” 

Her performance draws from a decades-long evolution of the character, who was initially more passive and sidelined, though modern adaptations empowered her as time passed. Here, in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, she’s front and centre, her motherhood not a liability but a superpower in its own right. 

“I was already so passionate about her,” says Kirby. “But it was so exciting to me, this idea of having this pregnant superhero, this working mother… Matt and Kevin were such huge champions of having her be as complex and as fierce and as loving and warm and all the things that I think the feminine really is.”

Throughout the movie that sees the quartet battle Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer, Shakman leans into the family dynamics in a 1960s setting inspired by Jack Kirby’s original art and the sleek vision of Stanley Kubrick, and nowhere is this more visible than in Pascal’s take on Reed Richards. 

“My favourite thing about it was actually that this person who is so brilliant… doesn’t really know how to understand the much more complex equation of relationships,” highlights The Last of Us star.

This Reed is a man trying to baby-proof the cosmos because he’s afraid to sit in the raw discomfort of vulnerability. He invites dangerous possibilities into his mind only because he seeks solutions to them, to safeguard his loved ones. Rather than being the aloof, emotionally detached genius seen in many comic arcs, Pascal’s Reed is closer to the fragile Reed of Jonathan Hickman’s run; brilliant, yes, but wracked with self-doubt. 

“At the core,” Pascal remarks, “Reed… is an incredible codependent. Without them, he doesn’t know how to function. He’s lost to his own brain.”

Quinn, meanwhile, finds unexpected dimension in Johnny Storm, a character typically depicted as a brash, flame-flinging showboat. Here, however, the actor channels a more introspective energy.

“He’s a bit of a searcher,” explains Quinn. “He’s looking for answers… All of these four characters are kind of sentenced to this idea of responsibility and superpower. And I think that he’s looking for answers outside of it.”

That existential yearning – a yearning for more than celebrity status and combustion – evokes later comic book arcs where Johnny struggles with identity in a world that treats him like a brand. Johnny is a character who has grown throughout his various runs in the source material, maturing not only as a person, but as a hero and a leader, and Quinn’s take may already be giving us the beginning of that character journey. 

For Ebon Moss-Bachrach, the transformation into Ben Grimm, The Thing, was both literal and deeply emotional. 

“(There’s) this tension between this, frankly, monstrous outside, and this very human, loyal, kind person on the inside,” Moss-Bachrach explains. “Trying to put his inner life out there and be understood and hold onto his humanity is inherent to this character.”

It’s a sentiment rooted in Fantastic Four #51, an early comic issue that explored Ben Grimm’s characterisation, studying what it means to remain human when the world only sees the external appearance of a monster. 

Across the panel, that theme of identity and belonging resonated, not just in character, but among the cast themselves. Their off-screen relationships, apparent in their interactions during the press conference itself, mirror their on-screen dynamics. They rib each other, compliment each other, and most of all, trust each other.

So sure is Marvel Studios’ of this family, it has already signed the case for future appearances, but this time within the larger MCU Earth 616. Already, the film’s mid-credits scene reveals what’s to come, and with the production of the next Avengers film, Avengers: Doomsday, some of the cast from earlier entries have already started filming, including those from this film.

In fact, the cast had to take a break from that film to do publicity for this film, which ties directly into that one.

“Everybody here is tired because they’ve already shot half of their next appearance as these characters in Avengers: Doomsday,” says Feige.

In other words, there’s no need for any homework to catch this movie, but be sure you watch this one before watching that one.

Make Mine Marvel.