Marvel Studios has found its "first family."
On Valentine's Day, the company announced the long-awaited casting for its new "The Fantastic Four" movie with an Instagram post.
The heart-filled, holiday-themed illustration revealed Pedro Pascal will play the group's leader Reed Richards (also the elastic Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby will play Sue Storm (also The Invisible Woman), Ebon Moss-Bachrach will play Ben Grimm (also The Thing) and Joseph Quinn will play Johnny Storm (also The Human Torch).
Matt Shakman, who directed Marvel's Disney+ series "Wandavision," will direct the reboot, which arrives in theaters on July 25, 2025.
"The Fantastic Four" story began in 1961 when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's created the group as Marvel's first superhero team, centering on the four characters who gained superpowers after they were exposed to cosmic rays during a space mission.
Richards/Mr. Fantastic is a genius inventor who can stretch his body into anything and leads the group. His girlfriend and later wife Sue Storm/Invisible Woman can make herself and others invisible through force fields. Her younger brother Johnny Storm/Human Torch can light himself and other things on fire as well as fly. And Grimm/Thing, who met lifelong friend Richards in college, is a skilled pilot with stone-like skin and superhuman strength.
The dysfunctional but loving family has so far appeared in four live-action films, though the first low-budget iteration made by Constantin Films in the 90s was never released.
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After Constantin sub-licensed the film rights to 20th Century Fox, the studio released "Fantastic Four" in 2005 and a sequel "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" in 2007. The films — which starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis — grossed more than $635 million combined at the global box office but received mixed to negative reviews, causing a potential third film and a spin-off movie to be scrapped.
Then another "Fantastic Four" — starring Miles Teller, Kata Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell — was released in 2015. Negative reviews and a worse box office result led to its scheduled sequel being canceled.
Disney, which owns Marvel Studios, acquired Fox in 2019, thereby gaining back the rights to the characters and opening the door to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the story. The first showing of this relationship was when the Reed Richards character, played by John Krasinski, appeared in the 2022 Marvel film, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness."
Last year, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told Entertainment Weekly, "There's certainly been versions of it [on screen], but never inhabiting the storytelling of the MCU. And that's something that is really exciting for us."
