In a landmark corporate merger earlier this year, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox and all of its properties. Among other things, Marvel Studios regained the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters. Soon enough, they’ll all be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the travesty directed by Josh Trank a few years ago, Fant4stic, the MCU’s reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise can’t really get any worse.
With any luck, it’ll be as great a superhero team-up as The Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy. So, here are 5 Things That Have Been Confirmed For The MCU’s Fantastic Four (And 5 Fan Theories).
Confirmed: Marvel is committed to giving the Fantastic Four a movie they deserve
As a Marvel fanboy, Kevin Feige was disappointed by Fox’s previous attempts to bring the Fantastic Four to the screen, and he’s not been afraid to express that disappointment. He’s committed to ensuring that the MCU’s reboot of the franchise will finally give the characters the on-screen portrayal that they deserve, that they have been deprived of until now.
According to Feige, “I’m extremely excited about those characters, and about bringing Marvel’s first family up to the sort of platform and level they deserve.” This isn’t so much a confirmed fact as a promise, but Feige usually lives up to his promises, so it might as well be a confirmed fact.
Fan theory: It’ll be set in the ‘60s
Peyton Reed, the director of both Ant-Man movies, detailed his pitch for a Fantastic Four movie that would be set in the 1960s. It might seem tough to fit that into the MCU, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has been working with superheroes since World War II in the MCU’s timeline. Hank Pym’s Ant-Man and Janet van Dyne’s the Wasp were carrying out missions during the Cold War.
It would be possible to do a Fantastic Four movie set in the ‘60s, even if it ends with the team disappearing through a wormhole and reappearing in the present day, post-Snap and post-Blip, with plenty of Avengers populating the world.
Confirmed: It’s unrelated to Noah Hawley’s Doctor Doom movie
Before the Disney/Fox merger brought the rights to the Fantastic Four characters back to Marvel, Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley had been working on a concept for a Doctor Doom movie with Fox execs. Hawley finished his script, and has implied that it’s awaiting review at Marvel Studios, but the MCU’s Fantastic Four movie has no connection to this film.
If Doom doesn’t appear in the MCU’s Fantastic Four movie, this could be a measure to allow the Doctor Doom movie to happen if it fits into the MCU’s future, but the two aren’t being developed in conjunction for the time being.
Fan theory: The team will work with Nick Fury and S.W.O.R.D.
The mind-bending post-credits scene in Spider-Man: Far From Home revealed that Nick Fury hadn’t really been there throughout the entire movie, and he’d actually been the Skrull character Talos in disguise. The real Fury had been on a command ship in the farthest reaches of space with a team of Skrulls.
Some fans have speculated that this is setting up the appearance of S.W.O.R.D. – the cosmic alternative to S.H.I.E.L.D. – in the MCU. If this is the case, then the Fantastic Four (who, despite living in New York, spend a ton of their time in outer space) could be joining him.
Confirmed: It won’t be released until at least 2022
The MCU’s release slate is full up to 2022. Marvel will be releasing four movies in one year for the first time ever in 2021: a Shang-Chi movie, a fourth Thor movie, a third Spider-Man movie, and a second Doctor Strange movie. So far, the only confirmed MCU release for 2022 is Black Panther II, but it’s been rumored that a third Ant-Man film could be arriving, too.
The earliest that the Fantastic Four reboot will be arriving is 2022, but it’s more likely that it’ll be even later than that as Marvel figures out how to do the characters justice and integrate them into the wider MCU.
Fan theory: It’ll introduce Galactus into the MCU
With Thanos gone, the MCU is in need of a new big bad, and it might have the perfect opportunity for one with Galactus, a long-time enemy of the Fantastic Four. He’s a gigantic cosmic overlord who eats planets. The MCU has made a habit out of giving its characters comics-accurate appearances.
Sometimes, the movies will deviate from the comics, but even some of the sillier-looking characters – like Ego, a planet with a face – have made their way to the silver screen in the MCU. If the Fantastic Four reboot introduces Galactus, it should be the real Galactus, not just a boring cloud like we got in Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Confirmed: The movie hasn’t been cast yet
As the Fantastic Four’s introduction into the MCU is still in the earliest stages of development, the characters haven’t been cast yet. Marvel fans have been offering their own top choices for the roles, from Zac Efron as Johnny Storm to Ron Perlman as Ben Grimm, but no official announcements have been made as of yet.
This movie faces a particularly difficult casting challenge in that Sarah Finn and her team aren’t just casting one hero, like they do with most MCU solo movies; they’re casting four. This challenge is closer to casting Guardians of the Galaxy than it is to casting Ant-Man.
Fan theory: John Krasinski and Emily Blunt will play Reed Richards and Sue Storm
The key to a great Fantastic Four movie is making the team feel like a real family. One of the most popular fan castings for Reed Richards and Sue Storm in the MCU is real-life married couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt.
The duo has been on Marvel’s radar since the beginning of the MCU, as Krasinski was on the shortlist for the role of Steve Rogers and Blunt has previously passed on offers to play both Natasha Romanoff and Peggy Carter. When Screen Rant asked Krasinski about the possibility of playing these roles, he said, “I would love that!”
Confirmed: The characters will eventually join a big crossover movie
While Marvel Studios only looks one movie into the future, Kevin Feige has promised that another big ensemble MCU crossover featuring the new characters is in development: “The MCU is all interconnected, but we really focus on one movie at a time.
“We’re going to make the best Black Widow movie we can possibly make, the best Eternals movie we can make, the best Shang-Chi, the best Doctor Strange, Thor, Captain Marvel, Black Panther...and keep evolving their stories. Then, yes, it is always fun to see them come together in a master plan, which is, I promise you, well underway.”
Fan theory: The characters will be introduced via the multiverse
The Fantastic Four are often termed “Marvel’s first family,” because they were the characters that established the Marvel universe in the company’s earliest classical superhero comics. However, introducing them into the MCU after Avengers: Endgame puts the story in a tough spot.
If they only just get their powers and become a team now, it’ll feel disingenuous to what makes the characters great. But if they’ve supposedly been around for years, fans will wonder why they didn’t show up to help the Avengers before. This is where the multiverse could come in handy. The Fantastic Four could come from a Thanos-less parallel reality.