Jon Watts is clearly a firm favorite of Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios, with the Fantastic Four reboot making him the only person other than Joe and Anthony Russo to have directed four installments in the superhero franchise. That’s a seal of approval if ever there was one, especially when the MCU has been happy to switch things up behind the camera over the years.
Most fans were expecting Watts to begin ramping up pre-production on Fantastic Four once Spider-Man: No Way Home was out of the way, and one of those unclaimed 2023 release dates looked like the ideal place to re-debut Marvel’s First Family as part of the most commercially successful multi-film series in the history of the business.
However, a potential spanner may have been thrown in the works, with Watts attached to a new project that’s become the subject of an intense bidding war. As per The Hollywood Reporter, almost every major studio in Hollywood is looking to secure the untitled crime thriller, which has A-list titans Brad Pitt and George Clooney set to star and produce.
Hot tickets like that tend to be fast-tracked into production as soon as they find a home, so if a deal gets reached in the near future, it could result in the start of production on Fantastic Four being delayed. Kevin Feige said casting news was coming sooner than you might think, and we were all expecting it to shoot next year in order to hit the big screen in 2023, but George Clooney and Brad Pitt of all people may end up causing a bump in the road.