New Info About “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” Revealed by EW, Including the Approach to Galactus

New details have been revealed about The Fantastic Four: First Steps thanks to a cover story in Entertainment Weekly.

What’s Happening:

A big new story at EW.com offers new insight on the upcoming MCU movie culled both from a set visit and follow-up interviews with the main cast and director Matt Shakman.
Shakman and the film’s creative team all speak about the retrofuturism approach with the design of the movie, which takes place in an alternate reality – and not the one we’ve been following through most of the MCU – where the 1960s took a very different path. Shakman calls the style “where Kirby meets Kubrick," referencing Fantastic Four’s comic book co-creator, the legendary Marvel artist Jack Kirby, and Stanley Kubrick, whose 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey was used as a major influence.
Says Shakman, “We knew that we'd be on another Earth, so we had a chance to reinvent what the '60s looked like. I was really interested in imagining the Fantastic Four being astronauts. Instead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin going to the moon, what if it was Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben who were really the first to go into outer space, the first to push those boundaries?"

The process of bringing The Thing to life is delved into, as it’s noted that actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach would perform scenes in a motion capture suit alongside his co-stars. Then, in some takes, a stand-in would take his place wearing a suit built to the Thing’s proportions in order to make sure the rest of the cast always understood the actual space this character inhabited compared to Moss-Bachrach.
Said Moss-Bachrach, “The Fantastic Four are very close. They're family before they go out to space and get mutated. So it was helpful that it was just me standing there, because then when Joe or Vanessa or Pedro looked at me, they saw Ben as opposed to the Thing. That's really valuable in terms of intimacy and the way that we behave with each other."
The film involves Sue Storm heading the Future Foundation, taken from Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four comic books. In this reality, the Future Foundation has truly helped make Earth into a utopian society, bringing about global demilitarization and peace, with Sue guiding them.
In the comics, Sue has evolved from a damsel in distress to arguably the most powerful member of the team through the decades. It was revealed in the footage from First Steps shown at CinemaCon last week that Sue will be pregnant in the film, but Vanessa Kirby said they still didn’t want to pigeonhole her. Kirby has clearly done her research, as she mentions to EW the period in the comics in which Sue became the evil Malice, a character representing very different parts of her than we usually see.
Says Kirby, “Matt and I were really aware that there hasn't really been a mother with a baby in these superhero archetypes women have been getting. One of the things I love most from Sue's history is when she becomes Malice, and all her dark stuff comes out. I was obsessed with that chapter of her life. So I wanted to make sure that there were tones of Malice in there with her, that she wasn't just the stereotype of a goody, sweet mother."
For now, the FF team won’t reveal which child the movie version of Sue is pregnant with, with both of Reed and Sue’s kids in the comics, Franklin and Valeria, going on to play important roles in Marvel canon.

The trailers have kept the film’s main antagonist, the world devouring Galactus, in the shadows, but EW notes he was done very much practically, with actor Ralph Ineson (The First Omen) wearing purple and blue armor right out of Kirby’s comics.
Says Shakman, "I didn't want to just use motion-capture for Galactus. I wanted to actually have someone there embodying the part. So we've built an entire costume for him, and we've done a lot of photography testing to figure out, ‘How do you make sure that the scale is correct? How do you film Mount Rushmore?’"
The Fantastic Four’s primary villain has always been Doctor Doom, who has appeared in every previous FF movie to date. While we know Robert Downey Jr. will play Doctor Doom in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday alongside Fantastic Four’s Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Shakman explained it felt freeing to not have Doom in First Steps, saying "Doom's a great character, but he takes up a lot of air. Other film adaptations have done both an origin story and Doom. We're doing neither, and that allows us to look at them from a fresh perspective." (though of course, we’ll see if Downey’s Doom still ends up being introduced in some sort of mid or post-credit scene in First Steps, as fans have speculated about since his Avengers casting was announced)
You can read more from EW’s report in their full article, including Joseph Quinn discussing his approach to Johnny Storm and Pedro Pascal on joining yet another beloved franchise following Game of Thrones, Star Wars and The Last of Us.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters on July 25th, 2025.

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