Why the future of the MCU rests on The Fantastic Four: First Step’s success

SINGAPORE – Every decade or so, like a gambler stumbling towards the roulette tables of Las Vegas, Marvel bets millions of dollars on a Fantastic Four origin story. 

The 2005 release starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis as members of the superhero team was a modest success, so a sequel followed in 2007. But that turned out to be a commercial disappointment, shutting the door on that cast. 

A 2015 reboot crashed hard at the box office, taking the career of its director Josh Trank down with it, and it has yet to fully recover. Slammed by critics for being too grim, the doomed project starred Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell as the space explorers. 

Now, a decade after that venture, audiences are getting a new version, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which opens in Singapore cinemas on July 24. 

Marvel has a passion for The Fantastic Four it has not shown for its other properties, such as The Punisher (its last iteration was released in 2008) or The Hulk (no solo film since 2008). 

Why? Because there is a storytelling hole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). 

Ever since the old Avengers dissolved following the departures of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and the previous Captain America (Evans) in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios has lacked an elite superhero team to match their audience-pulling power.

But not for lack of trying. The last X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix (2019), tanked, as did two ensemble movies, Eternals (2021) and The Marvels (2023), sinking any chance of them acting as the new anchors for the MCU.

Marvel desperately needs a top-ranked fighting force, but not any old force. It must carry the MCU story deep into space, where the new cosmic threats live. Since Thanos the genocidal Titan was erased in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU’s roster of epic villains has been blank.

Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) was tested as the most evil person in the multiverse in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023), but that fizzled due to lack of audience interest and the American actor’s conviction for assault that led the studio to sever ties with him.

Marvel has been eager to introduce new Thanos-level cosmic horrors, such as Galactus, the devourer of worlds. The new threats must enter the story organically, so what better way to do that than with an interstellar encounter with the space-faring crew of Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) in First Steps?

The fact that they are family – Reed and Sue are a married couple, Johnny is Sue’s younger brother and Ben is Reed’s best friend – is perfect because it opens the door to story arcs driven by love. 

Cosmic threats need cosmic powers to counter them, and The Fantastic Four has them in spades. Scientific genius Reed, for example, can open portals into other dimensions, while Sue generates unbreakable defensive force fields. Johnny can erupt with the force of an exploding star and Ben can punch almost anything – including cosmic villains – into oblivion.

This new reboot is going all out to avoid the foibles of its predecessors. The main characters are older. The cast is made up of actors with proven track records. The movie opens with them wielding their powers, rather than going through another origin story. And from the trailer, the setting will be retro-futuristic, with neither the campiness of the 2005 and 2007 films, nor the bleakness of the 2015 story. 

Director Matt Shakman, who helmed the Emmy-nominated WandaVision (2021) for Disney+, has shown he can tell fantastical stories through characters who feel grounded and human. 

Marvel/Disney needs The Fantastic Four: First Steps to be a success. More than any film in recent memory, the future of the MCU rests on it.