Come hell or high water, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to reboot Fantastic Four, and it doesn’t even have to be a particularly good movie to emerge head and shoulders above the rest as the titular team’s best feature-length outing by far.
The 1994 original was only made to keep hold of the rights and was never intended to be released, while Tim Story’s painfully mid-2000s duology have the occasional bright spot in amidst a sea of overwhelming mediocrity, before Josh Trank’s ill-fated adaptation rightfully took its place among the pantheon of the worst comic book blockbusters ever made.
Under normal circumstances, the fifth film featuring the fourth different lineup of the exact same characters would hardly be greeted with enthusiasm, but there’s every reason to believe the MCU’s Fantastic Four will be worth the wait. Speaking of which, it’s been a long one already, seeing as the project was first announced in July of 2019 but isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until February of 2025.
Along the way, the revolving door of casting rumors has thrown countless names into the mix and spat them back out, while Spider-Man trilogy director Jon Watts vacated the chair to be replaced by WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman. And yet, speculation is already beginning to run rampant about another potential change behind the camera after a deluge of online scoopers began whispering that Shakman exited F4 prior to the strikes.
While it hasn’t been confirmed or corroborated as of yet, and the information has seemingly been available to select few for a while now, would anybody really be all that shocked? After all, Fantastic Four V5.0 is taking a long time to come together, so more behind the scenes discontent would hardly be out of the ordinary.