Call them... Fantastic!
With the main cast confirmed, here's hoping that the next Fantastic Four movie (finally) truly succeeds.
Speculation will only get you so far.
And following weeks (years?) of it, Marvel’s long-in-development, still-upcoming Fantastic Four film finally has its main cast and a scheduled release date, both of which, were announced on Wednesday.
Sure, there are never any guarantees (and there shouldn’t be, considering this movie has been in some stage of development for the better part of five years) but it is set, for now, to arrive in theatres in just over a year (July of 2025).
It won’t be short on immediate star power, either (HERBIE included):
Vanessa Kirby (The Crown, Napoleon) will be Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman.
Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) is Johnny Storm/The Human Torch.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear, The Punisher) will star as Ben Grimm/The Thing.
And Pedro Pascal, seemingly intent on crossing every major franchise off his bingo card, will round out the quartet as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic. John Krasinski, we hardly knew ye.
Officially revealed in a Valentine’s Day-themed post on Marvel’s socials, the seemingly retro-esque design of the announcement (including, if you look closely, a Richard Nixon cameo) has led to significant online chatter about the still-unknown particulars - a potential ‘60s-set period piece?
Yeah, it could definitely work. It should, in theory.
But when you’re talking about the FF? Well, we’ve been saying that for a while.
Now, on the surface, in the grand scheme of things, yet another superhero movie, might seem like something primed to get lost in our never-ending content shuffle.
When it chooses to focus on smaller scale, character-driven work, there is no denying that the MCU can still tell compelling stories the way few other franchises can. But as it continues, across TV and movies, to establish the players and stakes involved in its “Multiverse Saga”, those ambitions have, more than ever before, run up against either low box office turnout and occasional audience indifference.
Trying to keep track of various threads, characters and plot points, across two different mediums? It brings with it a sense of “homework” that has become a common criticism (yeah, welcome to comic book storytelling - it is convoluted as hell, we’re glad you’re here).
The idea, clearly, is that as the franchise reorients itself somewhat going forward, all the connective tissue will lead to the “next big thing”: presumably, an adaption of 2015’s Secret Wars comic storyline, which, succinctly, rewrote multiple universes, reset the board and established a new status quo.
Deadpool and Wolverine will no doubt do some of that heavy lifting when it arrives later this summer: where The Fantastic Four fits on that specific timeline? Well, we can’t say just yet.
But moving away from the franchise-focused big picture?
There is a lot banking on this adaption - especially, if you’re a fan of the characters.
The Fantastic Four, unlike many of their superhero contemporaries, have struggled on the big screen.
Maybe it is the high-octane sci-fi nature of their respective powers or their “wherever the galaxy needs us” style of heroics.
You’d think they’d be a slam dunk. Co-created by plotter and artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee, they debuted in 1961, forerunners, their arrival, ushering in what was later dubbed the “Marvel Age”: the period in which some of pop culture’s most beloved characters (on the Marvel side) arrived in quick succession.
The basic template - high flying bravery, contrasted with a more “human” portrayal, as a found family struggled with romantic woes and personality clashes both inside and outside their team - was revolutionary, a blueprint that many of the company’s heroes would follow in earnest (their honorary fifth, Spider-Man, in particular).
Yet on the screen, not all of those pieces have clicked in the way they should, not entirely.
The first time the team was adapted for the screen was in 1994’s The Fantastic Four - a movie that has now become more (in)famous for what it was, rather than what it could’ve been.
Produced by industry veteran Roger Corman, it was marred by contractual disputes and other Hollywood shenanigans behind the scenes and was never publicly released. Instead, 30 years later, it survives through bootlegs and the power of unlicensed YouTube uploads.
But… you know what? For all the schlocky special effects and unavoidable D-movie quality, there is a particular charm and sense of character it captures, harkening back, in some ways, to the original Kirby-Lee stories, perhaps even more so than any other adaption (to a certain extent).
That isn’t to say that the duology of the mid-2000s - 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Rise of the Silver Surfer - should be written off entirely, to be fair.
There are elements to like, from a pre-Captain America Chris Evans as Johnny or Michael Chiklis giving it his all as Ben, despite the nature of the role meaning he spends most of his time behind prosthetics. And there is an effort made to highlight the team’s unique dynamic - the most unexpected of found families - but compared to say, the best of Fox’s X-Men movies or the original Spider-Man trilogy, it never reaches the same narrative or thematic heights.
Ultimately, those movies are content to just be… fine at best and disappointing at worst - you can almost see the cynicism hiding behind it all - they knew the name alone would drive people to the theatre, what else did they need?
(And yes, I’ll concede that the budget was probably shot by the end of Silver Surfer but to turn the devourer of worlds, Galactus, perhaps the team’s seminal adversary, next to Doctor Doom, into a cloud? Man, that is just… not a good decision, on any level).
But then, there is Josh Trank’s 2015 film, FANT4STIC, which beyond being the bar-none worst adaption of the characters, in any medium, is also a poorly-made film in its own right - to the point that all the missteps you might find in Story’s at-times misguided efforts hold up much better in hindsight.
Trank, to his credit, has spoken openly about the project since then and what went wrong - said to be wrought with studio interference and creative misdirection. From a certain perspective, it only goes so far, though. Another misfire for a property that shouldn’t be that hard to bring to the screen, you know? (For the record, if you’re looking for a good Trank-directed superhero movie starring Michael B. Jordan, skip FANT4STIC and watch Chronicle instead).
But it is where this newest project (and Marvel Studios first with the license) will eventually land - in the wake of previous adaptations that didn’t succeed the way they could have, for a variety of reasons.
In the source material, the FF are pillars of the superhero community, the same way the X-Men and Avengers are. Yet on screen, they’ve yet to come all that close.
Third time’s a charm though and inevitably introducing the team to a new generation of viewers?
Maybe, hopefully, they’ll finally nail it.