When the Fantastic Four make their proper MCU debut, expect it to lean into the family element.
“I don't have friends, I have family” — Dom Toretto
Director Matt Shakman is stoked about getting to direct the film for Disney and Marvel Studios. It sounds like a true passion project.
“You know, I love the Fantastic Four much like I love Godzilla,” he told ClutchPoints with a smile during our chat about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. “I grew up reading those comics and those characters are so alive for me. I have to pinch myself that I get to work with them and live with them and help bring them to Marvel Studios and to the MCU.
“That's a huge opportunity and so I'm just passionate about bringing them to life and honoring what I love about the comics from [Jack] Kirby and [Stan] Lee to [John] Byrne to some of the modern runs and [Jonathan] Hickman and what Ryan North is doing now,” he added.
But what will separate his take on the Fantastic Four apart from the other two recent live-action adaptations? In a Vin Diesel voice: Family.
“There's just so much rich material in the comics. They are Marvel's ‘First Family,' and I think that's one of the things that's so special to me about them,” Shakman explained. “They are a true family [smiles], unlike the family you find along the way, like the one we have in Monarch, or the Avengers, or the X-Men. They're a true family.
“Well, I guess Cate and Kentaro, they're the true family too — and there's so much messiness to the Cate and Kentaro relationship (from Monarch: Legacy of Monsters). There's love and there's also tension and that's what makes the Fantastic Four work too. It's that same messy family stuff that I love, and that's a big part of the heart of it,” he concluded.
Before the MCU's Fantastic Four film, Matt Shakman directed two episodes of the upcoming MonsterVerse series, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, for Apple TV+. The series will premiere on November 17.
Fantastic Four will be released on May 2, 2025.
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