Did Superman overperform or underperform this weekend? It depends on who you ask, but many fans are already looking ahead to The Fantastic Four: First Steps and how its opening weekend will compare to the Man of Steel's reported $213 million haul.
Marvel Studios is upping the ante in terms of marketing, and we now have some new posters featuring the MCU's First Family and H.E.R.B.I.E.
While some of the character images used here will likely be familiar to you, these are still very cool and are likely to further increase excitement for this team's long-awaited, long-overdue MCU debut.
Until the Disney/Fox merger (announced in 2017 and completed in 2019), the Fantastic Four franchise was controlled by 20th Century Fox. That meant the team was off-limits to Marvel Studios, leaving Kevin Feige to introduce the heroes in a post-Avengers: Endgame MCU.
That might explain why The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes place in a parallel reality inspired by the 1960s. Fans are eager to explore Earth-828 (a nod to Jack Kirby's birthday on August 28), and during a recent UK Launch Event, filmmaker Matt Shakman explained why the events of this movie aren't playing out on the Sacred Timeline, a.k.a. Earth-616.
"We didn’t want them to be on this Earth or the Earth with all the Marvel characters because where were they when Thanos came, right? They would have helped out," the director shared. "They would have solved the problem then."
Marvel Studios probably could have figured out a way to make it so that the team got their powers after Thanos' attack (one popular fan suggestion had them trapped in the Quantum Realm). Now, though, it remains to be seen how the team's integration into the main MCU will be handled post-Avengers: Secret Wars.
Check out these new character posters for The Fantastic Four: First Steps below.
Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet.
Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.
Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, Natasha Lyonne, and Sarah Niles have been cast in mystery roles. Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom is rumoured to appear, though that's surely a given with Avengers: Doomsday on the way.
Director Matt Shakman worked with both Avatar: The Way of Water co-writer Josh Friedman and WandaVision's Cam Squires on The Fantastic Four: First Steps' screenplay, with Eric Pearson (Black Widow) later coming on board for a final polish.
The movie is set to be released in theaters on July 25, 2025.