The Fantastic Four: All About Marvel's Retro Reboot Starring Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn

Marvel is finally assembling the Fantastic Four. 

After many casting rumors and speculations, Disney confirmed the official cast list on Valentine’s Day 2024 with a fun graphic featuring Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm.

The upcoming Marvel movie has been in the works since 2019 when Disney first acquired the rights to the characters through their Fox deal. Marvel president Kevin Feige later confirmed the film during San Diego Comic-Con in 2022.

The new film will be the third movie adaptation of the Fantastic Four comic, following the 2005 film starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis and the 2015 film starring Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell. 

Marvel previously teased the introduction of the Fantastic Four in 2022 when John Krasinski played an alternate version of Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (who was quickly killed off). 

Here’s everything to know about the new Fantastic Four movie ahead. 

Who is in the cast of The Fantastic Four?

On Valentine’s Day 2024, Marvel officially announced the cast list for The Fantastic Four by sharing a cute graphic of the actors in characters. 

Pedro Pascal will lead the cast as Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mister Fantastic, the leader of the Fantastic Four. The rest of the superhero group includes Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, a.k.a. Invisible Woman; Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, a.ka. the Thing; and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, a.k.a. the Human Torch. 

Other cast members include Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal, a version of Silver Surfer, as well as Natasha Lyonne, John Malkovich and Paul Walter Hauser, whose roles haven't been revealed, per Variety.

What is The Fantastic Four about?

In the comics, the Fantastic Four centers around a group of astronauts who get exposed to cosmic rays in space and gain superhero abilities. 

Though Marvel hasn’t revealed the official tagline for the film, Feige previously teased that the movie would not center around how the Fantastic Four got their powers as previous iterations have. 

“A lot of people know this origin story. A lot of people know the basics. How do we take that and bring something that they’ve never seen before?” Feige said during San Diego Com-Con in 2022. Acknowledging that the superhero group launched the Marvel Comics universe back in 1961, he added, “We’ve set a very high bar for ourselves with bringing that to the screen.”

What is the title of The Fantastic Four?

During San Diego Comic-Con in 2024, it was announced that the official title for the film would be The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Who is directing The Fantastic Four?

Matt Shakman, who previously worked on Disney+’s WandaVision series, is slated to direct the upcoming movie. 

While speaking with Collider in October 2023, Shakman gushed about working on the upcoming Marvel film, teasing it would be very “different” from past iterations. “We are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material,” he told the publication. “I think it's going to be unlike anything you've seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you've seen before.” 

When will The Fantastic Four be set?

Unlike previous iterations of Fantastic Four, the new film will be set in the 1960s. During San Diego Comic-Con in 2024, Shakman teased the setting, noting it will have a throwback aesthetic.

"We're not just doing the '60s, we're doing retro-future '60s," he said. "It's part what you know from the '60s, but part what you’ve never seen before."

Speaking on The Official Marvel Podcast, Kevin Feige teased that the movie will be a period piece set in New York City, though possibly in a different universe. “There was another piece of art we released with Johnny Storm flying in the air making a 4 symbol and there was a cityscape in the corner of that image,” Feige said, per Entertainment Weekly. “There were a lot of smart people who noticed that that cityscape didn’t look exactly like the New York that we know, or the New York that existed in the ‘60s in our world. Those are smart observations, I’ll say.”

Who is writing The Fantastic Four? 

In September 2022, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer were tapped to write the script, however, in March 2023, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Josh Friedman, who previously worked on Avatar: The Way of Water, would be reworking the script. 

When did filming for The Fantastic Four begin? 

Per Variety, filming for the new movie began in summer 2024. Shakman previously told Collider the movie would film in London at Pinewood Studios, where many other Marvel projects have been filmed, including The Marvels, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the Loki series.

Production wrapped in late November 2024, Feige confirmed during a virtual appearance at the Disney APAC Content Showcase, via Deadline.

Is there a trailer for The Fantastic Four?

The first trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps was released in February 2025. Though it was less than two minutes long, the trailer gave fans their first glimpse at the team coming together for their weekly family dinner.

Pascal's character, Reed, is looking back on what life was like before they gained their powers as Sue reassures him that "whatever life throws at us, we'll face it together as a family."

When will The Fantastic Four be released? 

The Fantastic Four will be released in theaters on July 25, 2025, and will be part of Phase 6 of the MCU.

Will The Fantastic Four be in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars?

Following the release of their own film, the Fantastic Four will return to the MCU as they appear in both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, per Deadline. The news was confirmed at San Diego Comic-Con, where it was announced that Robert Downey Jr. would be playing Doctor Doom.

The character first appeared in The Fantastic Four comics in 1962 and serves as the archenemy of Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four throughout the comics.