Ever since late 2020, when Kevin Feige announced a Fantastic Four movie at Disney’s Investor Day presentation, fans have eagerly anticipated any news regarding Marvel’s First Family on the big screen. And at SDCC’s Marvel Studios Panel, we finally got our first announcement, as Feige formally announced that Fantastic Four has a release date of November 8, 2024. (The movie’s release date has since changed to February 14, 2025) and will officially kick off Phase 6. As the Thing would say, it’s officially “Clobberin’ time!”
The Fantastic Four have had a somewhat rough go of it at the movies. This despite being the title that launched Marvel Comics. The original 1994 low-budget Roger Corman film was never even released to theaters, as it was made only to keep the rights to the franchise. Then, Fox’s 2005 Fantastic Four movie came out, hot on the heels of X-Men. The movie was a financial success, but audiences didn’t fall in love with this goofier version of the team. It didn’t help that Pixar’s The Incredibles came out the year prior, and was a great FF movie in disguise.
The Fantastic Four sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, was even less liked. Mostly due to Galactus appearing only as a giant cloud. That killed the FF franchise for eight years, until 2015. A new reboot came out that year, that had both horrible reviews and horrible box office. It seemed the heroes of “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” would never get justice.
But when Disney bought Fox, the possibility for a true FF movie from Marvel Studios became certain. And at last, it’s finally happening. We got our first glimpse at what an MCU Reed Richards might look like in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness earlier this year. But that was the Mr. Fantastic of Earth-838. Might Earth-616 Reed be someone other than John Krasinski? Hopefully, we’ll hear about the director and cast at the D23 Expo, later this year. Production is set to begin in 2023 so we can expect lots of tidbits between now and 2024.
Originally published on July 23, 2022.
