Fantastic Four 2025: Everything We Know? Will it Be the Rebirth of Marvel Studios?
The Fantastic Four have not done very well in the movies, they are legendary characters from Marvel comics, and they have great villains and incredible abilities, but most of the adaptations that have existed have not done them justice, and Disney wants to put an end to them. Bad luck. There are stories, like Dune, which will be adapted again by Denis Villeneuve, that seem to be cursed and fail to achieve the expected success despite having all the right elements (like Hulk, for example), but that only makes Hollywood You want to keep trying until you find the right pieces, format, and style. After two failed attempts to get the franchise off the ground, the Fantastic Four are back, now under the Disney banner and with expectations higher than ever.
Fantastic Four 2025: Everything We Know?
There is talk of including them in the MCU, possibly in the multiverse and in the stories of other comic book superheroes who have become the most popular in recent years, but is it possible to achieve this? Batman and Superman have already gone through many actors, Spider-Man found the key to making Tom Holland the best of them all and it seems like there is a reboot of superhero stories every day, so this is the best time to bring the Fantastic Four back, perhaps at the hands of one of the great directors to whom Marvel owes its success (like Taika Waititi and James Gunn). Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm are part of the future of Marvel, Disney revealed that it has planned a new film (among many other series and films prepared for the coming years) that promises to give a new opportunity to the family of superheroes.
Marvel Studios celebrated Valentine’s Day with the official confirmation of what had been floating in the air for months, namely the main cast of the next film dedicated to the Fantastic Four, the first produced on its own by Marvel after the three feature films by 20th Century Fox (and the 1994 version, never officially distributed). To be precise, the quartet will be composed of Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Susan Storm/the Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/the Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm /the thing). An announcement made with an illustration in a very vintage style, which would suggest the other element that has been rumored for some time: the film will be set in the Sixties, a rather philological decision (the characters, Marvel’s famous “first family”, were created in 1961). And perhaps the most interesting way to reintroduce the quartet to the screen after the less-than-exciting results of the previous films.
The Potential of the Past?
It’s not the first time that Marvel Studios has made period films, be it entire films (Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain Marvel) or extended segments of stories otherwise set in the present (Hank Pym’s adventures as a young man in the various Ant-Man). In the case of the Fantastic Four, it was an idea that Peyton Reed, at the time in the running for the film released in 2005, had proposed to Fox to distinguish Reed Richards and co from the other Marvel characters then in vogue at the cinema (and Spider-Man, mainly). Applying the same logic to 2025 (the new feature film is scheduled for July next year, with filming starting in late summer 2024), place the quartet in the 1960s (perhaps in 1964, an important year in history editorial group since it is the one in which Galactus and the Silver Surfer made their debut) would allow the House of Ideas to give the characters the space they deserve without having to worry excessively about their place within the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the other, inevitable consequence of this premise…
Another Universe
We already know, through statements from producer Kevin Feige, that the film entrusted to director Matt Shakman will not be an origin story, given that we have already seen it twice at the cinema in the last two decades (same reason why the formula was set aside for the MCU versions of Hulk and Spider-Man, and presumably it will be for mutants too). If the chronological location in the 1960s were confirmed, it is natural to hypothesize that the feature film is set in a universe of its own, since the protagonists would hardly have been active without being noticed by Peggy Carter and co. (and above all, they would not be age-matched with the age of the actors for stories set in the present). Their new debut, therefore, would be an adventure with no explicit connections with the Marvel world that we know, net of any allusions to what will come later in Phase Six: the so-called Multiverse Saga, includes an Avengers film titled Secret Wars, like the story of the same name in the comics where various universes collide. The ideal excuse to bring the Fantastic Four into our world, since Reed is one of the fundamental figures in the paper version.
A New Beginning
A similar stratagem is entirely possible, as already seen in other films where some characters are active in certain universes and do not yet exist in others (including Reed Richards himself, who appeared in a cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where he had the face by John Krasinski), and would lay the foundations for a new, very interesting era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe: once the ballast of the origin stories has been removed, heroes like the Fantastic Four and the mutants, already known to the cinema public, can enter the MCU through the Multiverse (the prevailing hypothesis is that, as in the comics, some universes are consolidated to create a new version of the main one, with the exiles from other worlds now an integral part of ours), giving rise to a new cycle of stories that can give space to some of Marvel’s greatest icons while other veterans take a more or less permanent break (it is difficult to imagine, even just for age reasons, that Bruce Banner and Stephen Strange will remain long after the conclusion of the Multiverse Saga). An intriguing future, whose roots could be found in a reinterpretation of the Sixties, that decade which gave life to most of the characters who have also been great heroes of the screen for twenty years.
Fantastic Four 2025: The Release Date:
The film already has a release date and we will be able to see it on July 25, 2025.
“I’m happy to announce a movie about one of Marvel’s truly iconic families, in fact, Marvel’s first family, the Fantastic Four,” Feige said, closing out a round of many Marvel movie and show announcements. “We are working on a feature film now and it will be directed by the director of our recent ‘Spider-Man‘ films, Jon Watts,” Feige added.
What will the Film Be About?
Being a reboot that seeks to start the franchise again, we can assume that it will focus on the space accident that gave the Fantastic Four their powers, which means that we will also see Doctor Doom again, who could become a major villain within the MCU. According to one of the first rumors from 2019, it said that there was the possibility of presenting the Fantastic Four within the world of Ant-Man, with the 4 characters working alongside Hank Pym in the 60s (already with their powers), they would get lost in the Negative Zone (which is similar to the Quantum Realm) and they would manage to escape to return to the current era, which would place them on the same timeline as the rest of the Avengers, but that is just a rumor. For now, it is known that John Watts will be the director, but it is not known what Marvel’s specific plans are for the story and characters, it is believed that it could be the next big MCU franchise.