There’s been three attempts at making a Fantastic Four film series, and with Marvel’s first family set for an MCU release, Kevin Feige has addressed if it’ll be yet another origin story.
The first two Fantastic Four film adaptations saw goofy comic book style origin stories for the superheroes, albeit with vastly different budgets. The ill-fated Roger Corman film is not without its charm, but absolutely without a budget. The Tim Story duology rode a thin line between drama and camp, which mostly failed.
Then came yet another attempt in 2015, with Josh Trank’s body horror inspired film (colloquially known as Fant4stic) which got cut to shreds in editing. This all led to where we are today, with the Fantastic Four on the verge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fans know the origin story of these heroes, so will they show it again in 2024’s Fantastic Four?
Kevin Feige has addressed the concerns, telling The Hollywood Reporter that “a lot of people know this origin story” so there’s no need for yet another redux.
“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? We’ve set a very high bar for ourselves with bringing that to the screen.”
There’s no confirmed cast or director yet for the film, with it still unknown if John Krasinski will reprise his role from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Krasinski’s performance as Earth-838’s Reed Richards wasn’t universally popular, with complaints over his dry-as-the-desert delivery.
Fantastic Four is scheduled to release Nov. 8 2024.