Well, I cannot say I saw this style of announcement coming, but Marvel has decided to reveal its full Fantastic Four cast in the style of a Valentine’s Day card after a solid year or so of rumors cycling through major and minor actors.
This batch has been all-but confirmed for a month or two now, and I wasn’t even sure if one or two were already official, but it seems not. Now, Marvel is just going ahead with it, and we have our cast. Here is your Fantastic Four:
Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, The Mandalorian) as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Vanessa Kirby (Mission Impossible, The Crown) as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman
Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, Dickensian) as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch
Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear, Andor, The Punisher) as Ben Grimm/The Thing
It does feel like a “so hot right now” list of actors, as all of them have had extremely high profile roles across film and TV as of late. Pascal of course has been the most busy, and I’m not sure how wild some fans are about this pick given that he’s almost become overexposed at this point, and they had some other actors in mind for Reed.
Joseph Quinn is coming out of his standout role in the last season of Stranger Things, which he did not survive, and I haven’t seen him in anything else besides that. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, aka everyone’s favorite “Cousin” from The Bear is a great pick even if he’ll mostly be doing mo-cap and voicework. He’s also a Jewish actor playing a rare Jewish comic character, which is great.
I think Vanessa Kirby is the best pick here. She’s been hovering just outside the A-list for ages now, supporting in Mission Impossible movies and one time period of The Crown. I really think she’s just hitting her prime, and obviously she is picture perfect here as Sue in a way I’m not sure the others are.
As for the movie itself, it’s currently scheduled for July 25, 2025, pushed back because of the strikes. Thunderbolts is taking its old 2025 date of May 2. FF was originally going to debut in November of this year, but now Deadpool and Wolverine will be the only MCU movie out in 2024, sort of a breath of fresh air from the overloaded cinematic universe as of late.
The Fantastic Four will be hugely important to this next phase of Marvel as one of the brand’s biggest sets of characters. Now it remains to be seen if their arrival will be joined by Doctor Doom, as that villain has a huge role in Secret Wars, albeit the MCU has leaned hard on Kang. Jonathan Majors, Kang’s actor, has been fired after an assault conviction and it’s unclear if the actor will be replaced, or the character will be replaced, as of yet.
It’s a solid cast, I’m excited. Hopefully we learn more about the film soon.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
