Marvel confirms the Fantastic Four casting everyone expected
Your new Fantastic Four is hitting theaters in July 2025
Aux News Fantastic Four
Well… it’s official. The casting news that we all saw coming has finally landed, and Marvel has its new Fantastic Four. If you somehow missed the weeks of speculation and hype, that’s Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing. It’s not exactly exciting news since anyone following Fantastic Four news basically knew it already, but at least the announcement came with a cute Valentine’s Day graphic.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the Fantastic Four has been a long time coming. Following the big flop of Fantastic Four (2015), the characters officially moved into Kevin Feige’s sandbox in 2019 when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, which owned the rights to the X-Men as well as F4. Feige didn’t officially announce a Fantastic Four movie until San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022 (when he also announced the ill-fated Kang Dynasty Avengers movie).
Feige initially set a Fantastic Four release date for November 8, 2024. Jon Watts, director of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy, was attached to direct, but had already left the project before Feige’s release date announcement. In August 2022, WandaVision’s Matt Shakman was brought on board. In September, Marvel Studios tapped writers Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer—whose credits included indies The Last Of The Great Romantics and Bert And Arnie’s Guide To Friendship—to pen the script. But by March 2023, they were replaced by Avatar: The Way Of Water scribe Josh Friedman. Meanwhile, there seemed to be new casting rumors every week as to who would play the titular team: Matt Smith? Jodie Comer? Jack Quaid? Lily James? Daveed Diggs?
By November 2023, the “Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards” rumor seemed to solidify into accepted truth, along with Kirby (Napoleon), Quinn (Stranger Things), and Moss-Bachrach (The Bear). The news was all but confirmed when fans noticed Pascal’s SAG-AFTRA bio stated he “will soon begin production on Marvel Studios’ FANTASTIC FOUR.”
Now the news is actually confirmed, along with a new release date, July 25, 2025. (BTW, Thunderbolts has also moved to May 2, 2025, per Deadline.) As we’ve noted before, casting an older Reed Richards suggests we’ll be skipping over the origin story we’ve already seen on screen multiple times before (an idea that worked out pretty well in the case of MCU Spider-Man). The retro branding of this announcement also suggests the film may lean into a classic comic book aesthetic; it certainly fits with Shakman’s previous work on WandaVision. Now we just need to know who’s being cast as the movie’s villain: Galactus? Silver Surfer? Doctor Doom? (Ben Mendelsohn, who starred in Captain Marvel, would like that job.)
At times, a big-screen Fantastic Four has felt a little cursed—and the movie is coming at a time when Marvel is in turmoil and the future of superhero cinema is uncertain. Still, the studio seems to be putting its full weight behind a new team. “Fantastic Four is the foundation for everything that came after in the comics. There’s certainly been versions of it [on screen], but never inhabiting the storytelling of the MCU. And that’s something that is really exciting for us,” Feige told Entertainment Weekly exactly a year ago today. “We plan on that being a big pillar of the MCU going forward, just the way they’ve been in the comics for 50 or 60 years.”
83 Comments
wouldn’t say i’m disappointed because i’ve never been much of a fantastic four guy, but in general another tentpole property starring pedro pascal is boring to me.also looks like 2025 is returning to 3x mcu movies eh?
Yep. Love everything about this except PP again. And I love him in his other roles.
i would say i got from ‘like’ to ‘tolerate’ in other roles. i’m not a hater but i never fell in love with him to the degree that the rest of the internet seemed to, and i found him genuinely annoying in stuff like wonder woman 84 (could have been the entire movie around him, also)
Nothing against the man, but he’s in danger of becoming this season’s Chris Pratt, and nobody wants that.
I’m not as intrigued by by Pascal as most of the world is, but Vanessa Kirby is a gem and is who makes this mildly interesting to me. I’ll be impressed if this turns out well given the bad luck Fantastic Four has had.
genuinely curious what accents everyone is going to use. the only american is the rock monster.
Pedro Pascal is American
You mean the actors? Pascal was born in Chile but he’s lived in the US since he was a small child, so he has a fairly typical American accent.Anyway, I assume they’re going to use generic American accents since the characters are all (canonically, as far as I know) Americans.
“so he has a fairly typical American accent.”Yep.Unless you’ve ever, you know, heard him speak.
I looked it up and Reed Richards apparently is from Central City, CA, so I think they’ll go with those accents from “The Californians” on SNL. Sue Storm is from Long Island, so Kirby will definitely do a Fran-Drescher accent.
“Dude, how did you get here so fast? Did you take the bypass off the Negative Zone?”
Pascal was raised in San Antonio, Texas. His everyday speaking voice sounds pretty damned American. Kirby played Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire to critical acclaim (and she began her career as a classically-trained English stage actor—they eat American accents for breakfast). And did you watch season 4 of Stranger Things? Joseph Quinn can play a cocksure Johnny Storm, voice and all, no problem.
i apologize to the community for my pithy comment about accents.
Tangent: Kirby was really good in Streetcar, and so was Ben Foster. (I didn’t love Gillian Anderson’s Blanche, but it wasn’t awful.) There’s a pro-shot recording of the full play available somewhere, and I’d recommend tracking it down. It’s great.
And although Ben Grimm is famously from NYC, I vote that they change that for this film so that Ebon can just use his Chicago accent from The Bear.
The only reason 2024 doesn’t have 3 is the strike.
I love the Fantastic Four. The first two Fox movies were okay but MCU has really raised the bar. Let’s forget 2015 and bring on Doom and Galactus!What a time to be alive…
I know you said forget the 2015 movie, but maybe we’re being a little hasty, and there’s still a lot of fertile ground left in turning Doctor Doom into a gloomy kid hacker called Domashev who ends up transforming into a walking mannequin with glowey eyes.
I must admit, despite being pretty “over” the MCU by now, this casting did ignite a twinge of excitement. I know it’ll never happen but what I really want is for them to just reboot the entire MCU and focus on F4/X-Men.
I know it’ll never happen but what I really want is for them to just reboot the entire MCU and focus on F4/X-Men. I mean, that’s as good as happening. You’re not going to get a full-on reboot, but the focus will definitely be on the X-Men and (to a lesser extent) F4 characters going forward. Provided the plan holds, building to Secret Wars is essentially that, even if it’s still named as an “Avengers” flick.
I think it’s fairly likely we see a major reboot after Secret Wars. Maybe not a “full-on” reboot if they choose to keep a few characters/castings.
I have to say my heart sank a bit seeing Herbie in the illustration.
Hopefully that’s just for this cutesy little promo.
Well, you gotta have merch, right? ugh…
Maybe they’ll abuse the shit out of it the way the Ventures would torture HELPeR.
“Eh… I probably won’t watch it”-Uatu
Hell, he wears a mask, so no one will care that he’s already been in the MCU – cast Mads Mikkelsen as Doom.
I’m wanting loud as Hell George C. Scott-like aggressiveness. LOL. I’d love for them to go wild and get Sean Penn in off the charts, scenery-eating mode. Or even Tom Cruise.And I know he’s getting up there, but could they make Clancy Brown work??
“And I know he’s getting up there, but could they make Clancy Brown work??”OMG. How did I never consider this, yes!!!! If JEJ can still voice Vader at 90 Clancy can voice Doom at 65.
That’s my absolute top pick but if they decide they can’t because he’s MCU, one random thought just popped into my head and I now kinda like it: Daniel Craig. I think he’d be a really interesting Doom.
That’s….a really good idea, actually!
I can picture that!
Yeah, that’s an interesting pick too! I could see it.
Why can’t they cast an actor who’s actually from Latveria?DO – BETTER – MARVEL
Claes Bang would be great too.
Craig would make such a better Magneto though. Those eyes behind the helmet will generate goosebumps.
Daniel Craig with his Knives Out accent for Doom would be perfect.
Only if Daniel Craig keep his Foghorn Leghorn accent from Knives Out.
I was hoping for Jon Hamm. But Mikkelsen and Craig are both excellent.
After seeing him be absolutely terrifying (and loathsome) in the most recent season of ‘Fargo’, I’d love to see more Hamm villainy.
I think we honestly might be a ways out from a Doom casting. I can’t imagine Doom being the primary villain of this one, maybe at most we get a Thanos in Avengers type post-credits cameo with no dialogue.
To hell with Doom. I’m only watching this if the Villains are the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes. You can’t go wrong with an elderly communist who can walk through walls wielding a baboon who can turn into a gun.
“Jim, I saw the pages you submitted last night. You’ve gotta stop doing peyote right before you come up with new supervillains.”
“Jim?” Oh no, we’re taking a creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in their prime.
My pick for Doom is Flula Borg. Hear me out: It would be terrible, but I personally would be very amused.
Tom Waits IS Doom.
My husband has been talking about Mads as Doom for AGES…
Looking forward to all the “I’m not racist but” takes on this.
#RockMonsterLivesMatter
Wait, what were you talking about?
I honestly think they cast Pedro Pascal because he’s one of the few nonwhite actors you can cast in a traditionally white role without right-wing nerds screaming about wokeism. (Reed is also probably the only character they could’ve race-bent without causing online whining—the Storms have to be the same race unless one is adopted, and Ben Grimm needs to stay white or else they’d be accused of Gamora Syndrome.)
Look pretty cool to me!
Beat that dead horse until it makes money.
I love that there’s a Kirby in this!!
Someone on Bluesky pointed out that at long last a Kirby will make some money from the Fantastic Four.
Marvel actually settled with the Kirby estate involving their attempt to gain back copyright through a termination clause in the Copyright Act of 1976 back in 2014, so several Kirbys have already made money from the Fantastic Four.
Ah, well that’s good to know!
I’m sad Jeremy Irons is too old to play the proper Doom he could’ve played 25 years ago.
Oh shit, he would have killed it in a FF movie in the 90s that was actually meant to be released.
Drop this movie right into the late 60’s and this could be really fun!
Drop this movie right into the late 60’s and this could be really fun! I agree, but then you have the whole movie being a flashback of sorts. My idea for the movie is to have the FF, after their space flight in 1963, fight the Mole Man and disappear (Negative Zone maybe). So their existence to the rest of the world would be more a rumor than a verifiable fact. Anyway, THEN they can show up nowadays. And yeah, they’d probably act like it was the 60s. Not like in the Brady Bunch movie but sorta.
Sure, Jan.
pedro pascal is a desperate move. he’s overexposed!
I think what’s-his-face who played Doom in the first FF was really good; that whole* film is really good! (FIGHT ME!) The second one is awful, though.
And the less said about Evil Jacket Potato Doom from the other FF film, the better.
I’d like to see (bear with me) Peter Serafinowicz play, or at least voice, Doom. I know he was in GOTG, but come on, imagine that mellifluous voice with an vague Eastern(?) European accent, opining how all who are not Doom are intellectually inferior.
Also, there’s a Dr. Doom Facebook group that I swear is the most wholesome thing I’ve ever seen. Literally everyone in it is all like “Yes, Doom is a bad guy but he’s not a BAD guy.” with none of the usual Comic Book Guy “Well actually” nonsense.
*okay, maybe not the whole thing
I was all ready for the first FF film to suck eggs, but it got most of the way there. The whole sequence on the bridge where Ben is thinking about killing himself is flat out stupid, however. It felt like they had “the money shot” of the truck hitting Ben and folding in upon itself, and then improvised a scene around it. Evans and Chiklis had charisma, Alba and Gruffudd… tried. Julian McMahon was Doom. He landed on Nip/Tuck after this so he’s cashing Netflix rerun checks now hopefully. I agree he was good and the best part of the movie was the last twenty minutes where Doom accepts his full Doom-ness and very efficiently goes about picking off the other four. Just like… “Oh hello, here’s a use for this heat-seeking rocket launcher.” Kind of an “It’s just business… but I’m going to enjoy this a little. Reed and his team just sort of annoy me” type vibe.
I said at the time that it captured the spirit of the FF well enough, and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm was a revelation. That second one, though. Woof.
Meh. I like all these actors, but none of them feel like the FF to me.
imagine being a grown ass adult and still giving a shit about the casting of comic book moviesI know I can’t…
Im a lifelong Spider-man and Fantastic Four fan. We’ve had plenty of good Spider-man movies. I just want one decent FF film. I hope this is the one. Vanessa Kirby is great
I find it kind of odd that this article makes no mention of what I presume a large number of folks would still be thinking. That John Krasinski had played the role recently, and was going to be in the role for the new movie. I did not see Pedro Pascal coming in any way.
I read at some point that his part was no more than a cameo for fan service, made possible by the (getting tired) multi-verse gimmick. I would have been all about him taking the role on permanently though. I also said, “What the hell? Why not?” when people wanted Emily Blunt for Sue Storm.
Doctor Doom is playing Doctor Doom. Doom insisted!
buncha Big Jaded Giants around here, color me very intrigued.
Spent a minute wondering how Jeremy Renner was going to play Reed.
Indeed, Pascal and Renner both suffer from resting Popeye face.
Looking forward to an updated Mr Fantastic dance floor scene from FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie.
Moss-Bachrach and Kirby are great choices. I don’t know Quinn, so fingers crossed.But man, I think Pascal is a terrific guy but I would not have figured him for this role. I’ve never seen him play the kind of stiff, officious type that Reed always struck me as (and needs to be).We shall see…
He was pretty unlikeable in most of his first Stranger Things episode but he managed to believably morph from the guy we saw in his first few minutes into a proper badass by the end of the season. It never occurred to me that he might not be American until I was done watching and then looked him up.
I know nothing about comics or the fantastic 4 but these people seem old….
Dont worry, they’ll be 85% cgi anyways.
July 2025, huh? So they’ve got just over a year to figure out how to make stretching powers not look like shit on screen.
The Pedro Pascal casting is uninspired. an uknown, like Eamon Farren (who played Richard Horne in Twin Peaks The Return) would have been a galvanising choice.Wonder Woman 1984 would have been a better film with just one villian, my choice being Kristen Wig’s character.
Marvel should reveal all their castings like this from now on.