While Marvel Studios is characteristically mum so far, The Hollywood Reporter says a 2024 Fantastic Four reboot could have found its director in Matt Shakman, who called the shots on the Emmy-nominated Marvel series WandaVision for Disney+.
Shakman is a veteran of both comedy and epic storytelling, with credits that range from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to Game of Thrones.
The project is key for the studio, as Fantastic Four — the stretchy genius Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic; The Invisible Woman/Sue Storm; the self-immolating Human Torch/Bobby Storm; and the Hulk-strong and made of stone The Thing/Ben Grimm — are referred to as “Marvel’s First Family” by comic die-hards.
That said, the team that debuted in 1961 has had trouble finding a footing on the big screen: There were a pair of films in the early 2000s, but they weren’t well received by fans — with the exception, by and large, of the performance of eventual Captain America Chris Evans, who played Johnny.
In 2015, then-rights-holder 20th Century Fox tried to reboot the superhero quartet, but the project was beset with problems and was a total failure at the box office.
Disney’s acquisition of Fox brought Fantastic Four under the Marvel Studios umbrella, and studio head Kevin Feige announced in 2020 that a Marvel Cinematic Universe film was on its way with Spider-Man series director Jon Watts at the helm, but he left the project earlier this year.
Fans only recent MCU glimpse of F4 was over the summer, with John Krasinski playing Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — but that was understood to be one version of the hero and not necessarily the one we’ll see going forward.
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