When news first spread that Marvel Studios was planning on giving the Fantastic Four an MCU reboot, fans immediately began speculating on which actors would be cast to play Marvel’s first family. The four superheroes notably found success in the 2000s with two Fantastic Four films starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis as the powerful quartet, and while they aren’t the greatest movies, fans tend to feel some nostalgic affection for the films. The MCU would start just a year after Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was released, effectively putting a stop to any continued sequels with the current stars.
Even with the MCU going strong, the rights to the Fantastic Four were still owned by 20th Century Fox until Disney acquired the company in 2019. Unfortunately, Disney acquired the rights too late to stop an unfortunate 2015 reboot (you’d be forgiven if you were able to forget this happened — the actors sure wish they could) but fortunately got them soon enough for the Fantastic Four to join the MCU.
While the upcoming Fantastic Four movie is still in pre-production, with no confirmed cast in place regardless of the many casting rumors circulating the internet, the film does have a confirmed release date.
We’ll get a Fantastic Four movie — eventually
Originally announced in 2020, the upcoming Fantastic Four film’s release date has been delayed several times. It was first scheduled to come out in 2024 before being delayed to Valentine’s Day, 2025, which would continue a trend of Fantastic Four films being released every ten years, starting with the 2005 film. While that’s still on the table, the date has been pushed further into 2025.
Per a Deadline report, the new Fantastic Four film will now come out May 2, 2025. The movie isn’t the only one being delayed either; due to the WGA writers’ strike, multiple Disney films have been pushed back, from MCU titles to Avatar 3 to Star Wars. One upcoming movie, Deadpool 3, has been pushed forward from November to May 3, 2024, likely to make up for the delays.
Don’t get too attached to these new release dates — when asked about her secret Marvel project, Scarlett Johansson hinted at an upcoming actors’ strike to accompany the current writers’ strike. When more films are inevitably delayed, don’t blame the workers on strike, but the studios who aren’t paying the storytellers behind these scripts what they’re worth. On a positive note, another Fantastic Four delay means more time to hopefully land on a cast fans will actually approve of — we can dream.