- Set for release in mid-2025
- Filming will get underway on July 30
- Main cast confirmed in February
- Other actors reportedly revealed for supporting roles
- No official plot details or trailer yet
- Takes place in an alternate universe to the MCU
- Will likely set up the next two Avengers movies, including the recently announced Avengers: Doomsday
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the newest title bestowed on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie. Announced during Marvel's Hall H presentation on July 27, the highly anticipated superhero film received numerous other updates as part of said panel – and you'll find them all discussed in this guide.
Indeed, in this article concerning The Fantastic Four 's forthcoming MCU debut, we've rounded up the biggest news about its release date, confirmed cast, plot specifics, and impact on the cinematic juggernaut's future. Potentially big cast and story spoilers follow for Marvel's Fantastic Four movie, so viewer (or, rather, reader) discretion is advised.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps release date
Just announced in Hall H: Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps begins production on Tuesday. Only in theaters July 25, 2025. #SDCC pic.twitter.com/iPAlXlajnrJuly 28, 2024
The Fantastic Four will arrive worldwide on July 25, 2025. It was originally slated for November 2024, but Marvel's Fantastic Four movie received a revised release date on February 14 – the same day that the main cast and its second title were revealed. Its latest title revision, one of nine huge Comic-Con 2024 announcements that wowed us, was announced on July 27.
Speaking on the revived Official Marvel Podcast's first episode in late June, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige initially confirmed filming will start on July 29. However, that production start date was pushed back 24 hours so the main cast could travel back to the UK after the last-minute appearance at Comic-Con.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps cast: confirmed and rumored
Marvel has only confirmed The Fantastic Four: First Steps' main cast – i.e. those who'll portray the legendary members of the comic titan's 'First Family':
- Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic
- Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman
- Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch
- Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing
Ahead of the above quartet's unveiling, there was an avalanche of rumors about who'd play each team member that sent MCU fans into a tailspin. Some of the movie's confirmed stars, though, have been locked in for some time – Moss-Bachrach telling The Jimmy Kimmel Show in June that he signed up last August. In July 2023, Kirby also told TechRadar it "would be an honor" to play Sue Storm in the superhero flick, which all but confirmed she'd appear.
As for Pascal, he reportedly held talks with Marvel about joining the cast in November 2023. Six days before the main cast was announced in mid-February, a report revealed Pascal had signed on to play Richards, so the sting was taken out of that surprise, too. The only surprise reveal, then, was Quinn's; the Stranger Things actor being announced as Johnny Storm on February 14.
On the villain front, one of the Fantastic Four's most famous adversaries – Galactus – is the movie's big bad. The Office UK's Ralph Ineson will voice Galactus in The Fantastic Four:First Steps, with Ineson taking to X/Twitter (see below) to confirm he's portraying the planet-devouring cosmic entity after news broke of his involvement. For what it's worth, Marvel is yet to comment on his casting.
World devouring cosmic villain is it? I’ll see what I can do https://t.co/QhCk2v8VCcMay 10, 2024
Marvel has also reportedly hired other A-listers for supporting roles. Paul Walter Hauser (per Deadline) supposedly signed on for an undisclosed role in early May, with the Black Bird star being joined by Poker Face and Russian Doll's Natasha Lyonne on May 16. Marvel fans think Lyonne would be perfect for one specific role in The Fantastic Four:First Steps, too. John Malkovich is also believed to be part of proceedings, though his role is currently a mystery.
Elsewhere, Ozark's Julia Garner (via Deadline) is seemingly playing a gender-swapped version of The Silver Surfer. They're another prominent character in the Fantastic Four's extensive comic book history; a cosmic being who flits between being an ally and antagonist of theirs. The Silver Surfer is one of Galactus' heralds in the source material, too, so it's unsurprising that they'll feature.
And what of Doctor Doom, another of the team's legendary villains and one of Marvel's most iconic villains? With none other than Robert Downey Jr – yes, he of Iron Man and Avengers fame who died in 2019's Avengers: Endgame – cast as the Multiverse Saga's new main villain in Doctor Doom (or so we think), he's surely going to make a cameo at least, right? First Steps director Matt Shakman wouldn't be drawn on that rumor when quizzed by ComicBook.com, but he admitted (to Collider) that he's known about Downey Jr's latest MCU casting for a while.
Lastly, industry insiders CanWeGetSomeToast (per the AgentAAA4 X/Twitter fan account) and DanielRPK (via the Cosmic Marvel X/Twitter fan account) have hinted that Reed and Sue's children – Franklin and Valeria – will also show up. But, there's no word on who might play them.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps plot speculation
The Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn't have an official plot brief yet, but we do know some tentative details about the forthcoming Marvel Phase 5 project.
Firstly, First Steps won't be an origins story. With three other Fantastic Four films released since 2005, fans are well versed how the iconic quartet attain their powers. So, as Matt Shakman told Entertainment Weekly (EW): "One of the ways we're making it our own thing is we're not telling the story of them going up and being changed, and starting our story [there]. There's a lot of well-known narrative that leads into that moment, right? And then you're making up your new story starting basically at the end of the first act, and we thought, 'Well, let's just start this thing off on a completely new foot. So we are beginning after that.'"
Feige has also confirmed that the movie will be a period piece. "Yes, yes, very much so. It is a period," Feige told The Official Marvel Podcast episode 1. "There were a lot of smart people who noticed that that cityscape [artwork] didn't look exactly like the New York that we know, or that existed in the 1960s in our world. Those are smart observations, I'll say."
The cityscape imagery Feige mentions, which led to fans theorizing about its setting, was based on a piece of comic-inspired artwork uploaded to Marvel's social channels. The image, which you can see below, shows The Human Storm flying around a retro-futuristic version of New York, the US city that the group operates out of.
🔥🔥🔥🔥 #TheFantasticFour Celebrate 4-4 Day at: https://t.co/0L6vmfvKPN pic.twitter.com/byRvjcbsNfApril 4, 2024
In a Marvel.com article accompanying the above X/Twitter post, the comic titan also teased some key story details about The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Indeed, it links out to a page called the Future Foundation, a fictional organization created by Reed Richards for the betterment of humanity that first appeared in Marvel comics in July 2010. The webpage contains five downloadable comics, from throughout the group's illustrious literary history, that further underline Galactus and The Silver Surfer's involvement, plus the film's 1960s setting – the latter being first teased in a Fantastic Four movie poster alongside the film's other February announcements.
That's not the only fan theory to emerge recently. The depiction of a different New York City also suggests that The Fantastic Four: First Steps will take place in an alternate universe, with fans predicting that the group will eventually cross over into the MCU (designated Earth-616 by Marvel) as part of the ongoing Multiverse Saga. We're not sure how that'll work but, as MCU leaker Alex P claimed on X/Twitter: "They [Marvel] need to establish just how big the threat this [Multiverse] Saga can be that it can even cross over to different universes. So yes, they [the Fantastic Four] are important."
The Fantasticar takes flight in Hall H#FantasticFour#SDCC pic.twitter.com/bmYMhQQi07July 28, 2024
As for which comics (and the writers/artists behind their creation) will inspire its plot, Shakman told Inverse: "[We're] going back to [Stan] Kirby and [Jack] Lee and [John] Byrne, and following all the way up to what's happening, certainly [Jonathan] Hickman and [Mark] Waid and Ryan North, what he's been doing. I'm trying to figure out who these characters are to me and how to bring them to life in the best possible way, and that's really where I've started and how we've approached it."
One thing that's clear about Shakman's adaptation is that it'll retain the "messiness" of the Fantastic Four's 'Found Family' vibe.
"It's different in so many ways because they are a true family," he told ScreenRant in November 2023. "Not a family you find along the way like the X-Men or the Avengers, but true family with all the messiness of a family like on Monarch[:Legacy of Monsters]. With all the love, the hurt, and the complexity of that. And also, they approach things with a sort of an optimistic and scientific approach that is very different from these other Marvel characters that I absolutely love, but how they solve problems is unique and I'm excited about it as well. I hope folks like it when we put it out."
Away from the source material, Shakman also found a surprise influence in the form of the cult cringe-comedy show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – a series he directed 43 episodes of.
"I've learned so much from working on It's Always Sunny over the years," he told ComicBook.com. "Those guys [show creators Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton] bring a unique combination of playfulness and precision, and I think you have to have both of those things in everything you make. You have to still be a kid in the sandbox, playing and inventing, but you also have to be rigorous about what you're doing and comedy is even more rigorous than anything else. The precision of making something funny is often way harder than making something really complicated with special effects work."
The Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer: is there one?
No, there isn't, but a Comic-Con 2024 sizzle reel – comprising pre-viz footage and some very early albeit brief scenes, shot specifically for the San Diego-based event – was exclusively shown during Marvel's Hall H presentation.
According to those in attendance, it shows Reed Richards teaching science to a bunch of schoolkids, the titular group suiting up for a space mission (likely the one where they acquire their superpowers), Ben Grimm/The Thing appearing on a dating show, the team flying through the retro-futuristic Manhattan skyline in their Fantasticar, and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it first glimpse at Galactus peering through a building's window.
It's highly unlikely that this footage will be part of the final product, but it nonetheless gives us an idea of what it'll look like. It'll be a long time before an official teaser is released, too, so this is all we'll have to go on for many months.
Where can I watch the previous Fantastic Four films?
You can watch 2005's Fantastic Four, 2007's Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and 2015's Fantastic Four on Disney Plus no matter where you live. As long as you're subscribed to one of the world's best streaming services, you can watch it in the US, UK, and Australia.
How will The Fantastic Four impact the MCU?
The short answer is: we don't know. If, as it's been heavily rumored, the group will wing their way into the MCU after The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the famous quartet will surely have a big role to play in the rest of the Multiverse Saga, which began with Marvel Phase 4 and will end with Marvel Phase 6.
We'll see Mr Fantastic and company in the next two Avengers movies, too. Originally, the Marvel supergroup weren't expected to be part of Avengers 5, which was rumored to be getting directed by Joe and Anthony Russo before the duo's involvement was confirmed at Comic-Con 2024. They've directed four of the best Marvel movies in recent memory, so their return is certainly a welcome one.
But we digress. At Comic-Con 2024, Marvel President Kevin Feige revealed the Fantastic Four will be part of both films' ensembles, the first of which will be the aforementioned Avengers 5, which has been renamed Avengers: Doomsday and will introduce Downey Jr's Doctor Doom. Well, if he doesn't cameo in a post-credits stinger, or as part of First Steps' plot, first. The group and Doom will also play prominent roles in Avengers: Secret Wars, too.
As for potential First Steps spin-offs, there were reports (in October 2022) that a Silver Surfer TV show was tentatively in development for Disney Plus. We've heard little about this possible project since, so it's unclear if it'll ride the crest of The Fantastic Four:First Steps' wave and see the light of day.
For more Marvel-based coverage, find out how to watch the Marvel movies in order or get the lowdown on Agatha All Along, the next MCU Disney Plus series that'll arrive on September 18.
