Kevin Feige has revealed an unexpected detail about the setting of Marvel’s forthcoming The Fantastic Four film.
The project is the first time the superhero team will join the interlinking Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), with a star studded cast that includes The Last of Us’s Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, and Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman.
Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn will also appear as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch alongside Ozark’s Julia Garner as Silver Surfer, The Office star Ralph Ineson as villain Galactus, and John Malkovich, who will play a part that is still undisclosed.
Speaking on The Official Marvel Podcast, Feige, 53, said perceptive fans had already spotted the unexpected setting of The Fantastic Four film, which had not yet been announced.
“It’s a period film,” he revealed. “There was another piece of art we released with Johnny Storm flying in the air making a “four” symbol. There was a cityscape in that image.”
Feige continued: “There were a lot of smart people who noticed that that cityscape didn’t look exactly like the New York that we know or the New York that existed in the Sixties in our world.
“Those are smart observations, I’ll say.”
The Marvel boss also announced The Fantastic Four will start filming on Monday, 29 July – directly after the comic book convention Comic-Con takes place in San Diego, California.
“Our director, Matt Shakman [WandaVision] has already moved to London, and we start filming at the end of July,” he said. “Funny story, we start shooting the Monday after Comic-Con.”
He added: “I’m extremely excited because those characters are mainstays, are legendary pillars of the Marvel Universe that we’ve never gotten to play with or explore in any significant way apart from [Doctor Strange in the] Multiverse of Madness and a few fun teases before, in the way we’re doing that film. So, I’m extremely excited.”
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Disney’s Marvel Studios acquired the rights to the Fantastic Four in 2019 when the company merged with Fox.
Last November, news leaked that Pascal was “in talks” to lead the reboot. While earlier that year, Mila Kunis was forced to shut down rumours that she had been tapped to play Sue Storm.
Fans had also favoured John Krasinski and Emily Blunt to play Reed and Sue, respectively. Krasinski had played an alternate universe version of Mr Fantastic in the MCU’s 2021 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
His version of the character, however, was killed off and Marvel subsequently insisted that Krasinski would not necessarily play the character within the main MCU timeline.
The original Fantastic Four comic books follow a group of scientists who develop superhero qualities after they are exposed to a mysterious cosmic storm.
The Fantastic Four is set to be released on 25 July 2025.
