Fantastic Four is a popular comic-book franchise which has been unsuccessfully adapted onto the big screen. The F4 fans lost hope after the two movies bombed at the box office and turned out to be disappointing. But with the Disney-Fox multi-billion deal going ahead, there is a renewed sense of hope and optimism among the Marvel fans. Initially, there were anti-trust issues but subsequently, US Department of Justice cleared the decks and now the deal is ratified by the shareholders of both Fox and Disney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpcikTr3CpA
A huge Marvel fan has cut a trailer for the ‘Fantastic Four’ movie supposedly, where John Krasinski is playing Reed Richard/Mr. Fantastic, Emily Blunt is Sue Richards/ Invisible Woman, Zac Efron is Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Vin Diesel is Ben Grimm/ The Thing. The Youtuber “StryderHD” showed well-placed footage of these actors from multiple projects and give us a sense of what the movie would look like.
In fact, the original plan of Tim Miller was to include cameos of members of Fantastic Four into the Deadpool sequel. He collaborated with Marvel Illustrator Alexander Lozano who made some of the concept art related to the Josh Trank’s F4 members aka Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell. This was never used in the movie when Miller was replaced by Leitsch.
It’s a matter of time as to when Fantastic Four characters are integrated into the larger MCU and there is a possibility of a major crossover, as Disney would have the movie rights to these amazing characters. The biggest question now is – Will we see Fantastic Four in the upcoming Avengers 4? The answer is negative.
The Marvel President Kevin Feige has made it clear that the deal would not have any impact on MCU Phase 3. Here’s what he said:
“I feel like with Avengers 4, because it was made before there was any response to Avengers 3, it’s really pure in that regard. The storytelling is very pure. It’s without any sort of external noise creeping in at all.”
There is just not enough time to introduce a whole array of new characters, write new storylines, cast new people and ensure that it looks seamless. Also, DOJ is just one of the regulatory agency that has approved the deal, there are other agencies whose approval is needed, which could take a while.
Hence, the best way forward is to tease Fantastic Four characters is in the post-credits of Avengers 4. Feige is also of the view that once the deal is complete in its entirety, he will begin to develop properties. He said:
“When and how that deal with Fox finishes and comes together and we’re told, ‘Hey, now you can start working on it. Now you can start thinking about it,’ is when we’ll actually start thinking about it,”
The director of Ant-Man and the Wasp Peyton Reed has often talked about his dream to direct a movie based on Marvel’s first family aka Fantastic Four. He had conversations about this with top Marvel executives. Many comic-book experts have claimed that it is much easier to introduce Fantastic Four characters like Reed, Sue etc. into the MCU as their stories are relatively less complicated as compared to X-Men.
It’s possible that MCU may branch out to the larger Marvel multi-verse. In fact, Evangeline Lilly aka Wasp had this to say:
“In Ant-Man and the Wasp, they are trying everything in their power to safely enter the Quantum Realm and return back from it because they have evidence from the first film that Scott Lang was able to do that. If he can do it, why can’t we? If we do succeed in Ant-Man and the Wasp, then that does open a whole entire new multiverse to enter into and play around in,”
If this happens, then the introduction of ‘Negative Zone’ i.e a dark, parallel world often connected to Fantastic Four could be explored further. In fact, it first appeared in Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s comic-book titled Fantastic Four #51 in the year 1966. There are certain Marvel villains like Annihilus, Blastaar who have set up their base in there, and Marvel could use them in phase 4 and 5 if they wish to go into cosmic multi-verse.
