The Marvel universe is filled with any number of super scientists—Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Shuri—but they also have a number of famously scientific families like the Lang/Pym/van Dynes of the Ant-Man series. The most famous, however, has to be that of the Fantastic Four, led by Reed Richards, and comprising his wife, Sue Storm, her brother Johnny, and their friend, Ben Grimm.
The Wrap ran an interview with director Matt Shakman on why he left the fourth Star Trek sequel and chose to join Marvel’s first family of science on their upcoming adventures in the MCU for the movie that begins filming in early 2024.
Shakman, the director who cut his teeth on multiple popular series such as Succession, The Boys, Fargo, Game of Thrones, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and directed the entirety of Disney+ MCU series WandaVision, was all set to continue the J.J. Abrams Star Trek series with the long-awaited fourth installment of the Chris Pine reboot, but bowed after more than a year of production under his belt to take up residence with Marvel’s first family of science. Noting that various movies have schedules that ebb and flow, the director says he just couldn’t pass up another chance to work with Marvel on their Fantastic Four reboot set to begin production sometime in early 2024.
Despite the other many super scientists in Marvel’s stable, the Fantastic Four remain the pinnacle, having not only their own fame (as well as the fact that none of them have ever had secret identities, they’re celebrity heroes), but that they’ve inspired numerous other series as well including Disney-Pixar’s The Incredibles and Adult Swim series, The Venture Brothers. Says Shakman: “They both [Trek and FF] were launched in the ’60s at the same time, they’re both about optimism and looking to the stars and technology can solve everything and they’re about family too — the family you have, the family you make. So they’re aligned in many ways and speak to my heart and equally, so I’m excited to be working on Fantastic Four.”
Despite some cartoon series and two go-nowhere Fox attempts, the closest the MCU has gotten to even mentioning the family has been John Krasinski’s Reed Richards in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness where he got turned into human spaghetti by a rampaging Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). Otherwise, the MCU has been notably mum on the group that have their own Avengers Tower-style building in NYC in the comics, the Baxter Building, with a gigantic 4 on each side of the upper floors. It looks like Marvel is finally getting ready to introduce the characters that take on gigantic, cosmic adventures and face off with incredible villains like Galactus and the classic Doctor Victor Von Doom, a metal-clad madman who has more than once destabilized the entire Marvel universe and could give Kang a run for his money. Fans will find out more when Fantastic Four begins filming in 2024.
Fantastic Four begins filming early 2024.
Source: The Wrap