The Fantastic Four: First Steps Won’t Be an Origin Story

When The Fantastic Four: First Steps debuts next year, it won’t be telling an origin story of Marvel’s first family.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly following San Diego Comic-Con, director Matt Shakman opened up a bit about the movie. When asked whether or not the film will detail the group’s origins, Shakman said that the movie will do its “own thing” and won’t tell the story of the group getting their powers.

“One of the things we decided early on was not to do an origin story. One of the ways we’re making it our own thing is we’re not telling the story of them going up and being changed, and starting our story [there],” Shakman said. “There’s a lot of well-known narrative that leads into that moment, right? And then you’re making up your new story starting basically at the end of the first act, and we thought, ‘Well, let’s just start this thing off on a completely new foot. So we are beginning after that.”

Previously, past adaptations of The Fantastic Four have focused on exploring how the characters got their powers. Taking a cue from other Marvel Studios films, it seems this one will see the group already established as heroes instead.

Who is in The Fantastic Four: First Steps?

The film will feature Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/ Human Torch, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Julia Garner (Ozark) as a “Shalla-Bal version” of the Silver Surfer, and Ralph Ineson (Harry Potter) as Galactus, along with John Malkovich (Places in the Heart), Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird), and Natasha Lyonne (The Russian Doll) in undisclosed roles.

The titular team was announced through a Valentine’s Day poster, which seemingly hinted that the story might take place in the 1960s. Previous key art also teased the appearance of the team’s trustee robot H.E.R.B.I.E.

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four arrives in theaters on July 25, 2025, as part of the MCU’s Phase 6.

(Source: Entertainment Weekly )