With the writers’ strike over and the actors in negotiations with Hollywood’s studios as we speak, countless productions are getting ready to rev up again, including the highly anticipated new Fantastic Four film.
Director Matt Shakman delivered a slight update on that Marvel Studios project in a new interview with Collider, where he shared that they’re aiming to start filming in Spring 2024 – given that SAG-AFTRA can nail down a fair deal with studios soon – and teased an impending casting announcement, something that’s been wildly anticipated.
Asked if they were planning to go into production in 2024, Shankman said “we are definitely gonna go in front of cameras next year. Probably the spring” at Pinewood’s London studios. He pointed out that screenwriter Josh Friedman, who was brought on back in March, is now able to work on the script again, and that it has “a lot of momentum.”
"It's different in so many ways. I wish I could be specific,” he said of the new take on the famous four. “I wish I could say more. But we are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material. I wish I could say more. I would love to, but I can't. But I think it's going to be unlike anything you've seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you've seen before."
Fantastic Four is currently slated to release on May 2, 2025, which was announced during a massive Disney re-shuffling amid the WGA strike. It was first confirmed to open the MCU’s Phase 6 during Marvel’s big San Diego Comic-Con 2022 reveal, originally dated for Nov. 8, 2024, before being pushed to Feb. 14, 2025, and its current May date.
As for the castings of Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Sue and Johnny Storm, it’s safe to say that’s one of the most anticipated announcements in Hollywood at the moment. Countless names – Adam Driver! Matt Smith! Joseph Quinn! – have been floated around online for Mr. Fantastic himself, while The Boys star Jack Quaid outright denied rumors (and John Krasinski previously said he hasn’t been asked to return as the character following Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). But Shakman teased that we may yet get some answers soon enough.
“We're in the middle of a SAG strike, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they get a great deal really soon and we can go back,” the director, who’s currently promoting his upcoming Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, told Collider. “Then, once that's resolved, there'll be a plan at that point, but I can't say too much. There will be an announcement at some point! I know that the internet is very excited to find out, and I'm excited to share it. I just can't do it yet.”
It’s important to point out how vague Shakman is being here – he doesn’t even fully confirm that deals are in place for a cast, and they can’t be signed during a strike. Per the SAG-AFTRA’s rules, guild members “must not enter into any contracts for struck work during the strike, even if the work would occur post-strike.”
However, that doesn’t mean Shakman can’t think about who he might cast, and deals could be close to being ironed out once the strike is resolved. A slight update, but our most recent one nonetheless.
For more, check out everything we know about where various productions stand now that the writers’ strike is over.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
