The Fantastic Four: Marvel movie release date, confirmed cast, plot rumors, and more

The Fantastic Four is one of Marvel‘s most anticipated movies. The iconic quartet have previously appeared in three films of varying quality, but they’ll finally make their Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut next year. And, as one of the comic giant’s most beloved superhero groups, we can’t wait to see them share the screen with their fellow heroes.

Such team ups will have to wait, however, until the superteam’s standalone flick is out in theaters. So, when will it be released? Who’s playing the core foursome? And what will its plot entail? We’ll provide answers to those pressing questions, plus many more, in this guide. Possible cast and story spoilers follow for Marvel’s Fantastic Four movie, so proceed at your own risk.

The Fantastic Four release date

The Fantastic Four will debut in theaters worldwide on July 25, 2025. It was originally slated for November 2024, but Marvel’s Fantastic 4 movie received a revised release date on February 14; the same day that the iconic quartet cast were announced and its new title was revealed. Those details came five years after the film was initially announced in July 2019.

Speaking on episode 1 of the revived Official Marvel Podcast in late June, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige also confirmed filming will start on July 29. That’s 48 hours after the Disney subsidiary’s main Hall H panel – one of two presentations Marvel will have at San Diego Comic-Con 2024.

But we digress. Considering it’ll start shooting less than a year before it’s set to arrive in theaters, it’s unclear if The Fantastic Four‘s current launch date will stay the same. We should learn more about the movie, including whether Marvel will push its release back to accommodate what’s likely to be a lengthy filming schedule and post-production phase, during the aforementioned main Hall H presentation very soon.

The Fantastic Four cast: confirmed and rumored

So far, Marvel has only confirmed The Fantastic Four‘s main cast – ie those who’ll portray the legendary members of the comic titan’s ‘First Family’:

• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing

Ahead of the above quartet’s unveiling, there was an avalanche of rumors about who’d play each team member that sent MCU fans into a tailspin. It seems, though, a couple of the movie’s main stars have been locked in for some time – Moss-Bachrach telling a June 2024 edition of The Jimmy Kimmel Show that he’s known he was involved since last August. In July 2023, Kirby also told TechRadar it “would be an honor” to play Sue Storm in the superhero flick, which all but confirmed she’d appear.

As for Pascal’s involvement, he reportedly held talks with Marvel about joining The Fantastic Four‘s cast in November 2023. Six days before the main cast was announced on February 14, a new report revealed Pascal had signed on to play Richards, so the sting was taken out of that surprise, too. The only surprise reveal, then, was Quinn’s; the acclaimed Stranger Things actor being announced as Johnny Storm alongside his fellow stars in mid-February.

On the villain front, one of the Fantastic Four’s most famous adversaries – Galactus – is believed to be the movie’s big bad guy. The Office UK‘s Ralph Ineson will voice Galactus in The Fantastic Four, with Ineson taking to X/Twitter (see below) to confirm he’s portraying the planet-devouring cosmic entity after news broke of his involvement. For what it’s worth, Marvel is yet to comment on his casting.

Marvel has also reportedly hired other A-listers to feature in supporting roles. Paul Walter Hauser (per Deadline) is said to have signed on for an undisclosed role in early May, with the Black Bird star being joined by Poker Face and Russian Doll‘s Natasha Lyonne on May 16. Marvel fans think Lyonne would be perfect for one specific role in The Fantastic Four, too. John Malkovich is also believed to be part of proceedings, though his role is currently a mystery as well.

Elsewhere, Ozark‘s Julia Garner (via Deadline) has seemingly been hired to play a gender-swapped version of The Silver Surfer. They’re another prominent character in the Fantastic Four’s extensive comic book history; a cosmic being who flits between being an ally and antagonist of theirs. The Silver Surfer is one of Galactus’ heralds in the source material, too, so it’s unsurprising that they’ll feature in some capacity.

And what of Doctor Doom, another of the team’s legendary villains? MCU leaker MyTimeToShineHello (MTTSH) suggests he won’t appear, but fellow industry insider Jeff Sneider claims he’ll make a brief cameo at the end of the movie. Other MCU leakers in CanWeGetSomeToast (per the AgentAAA4 X/Twitter fan account) and DanielRPK (via the Cosmic Marvel X/Twitter fan account) have hinted that Reed and Sue’s children – Franklin and Valeria – will also show up. There’s no word on who’ll play them or Doom, however.

The Fantastic Four plot rumors

The Fantastic Four doesn’t have an official story synopsis yet, but we do know some tentative details about the forthcoming Marvel Phase 5 project.

Firstly, Feige confirmed – alongside its filming start date – that the movie will be a period piece. “Yes, yes, very much so. It is a period,” Feige told The Official Marvel Podcast episode 1. “There were a lot of smart people who noticed that that cityscape [artwork] didn’t look exactly like the New York that we know, or that existed in the 1960s in our world. Those are smart observations, I’ll say.”

The cityscape imagery Feige mentions, which led to fans theorizing about the film’s setting, was based on a piece of comic-inspired artwork that was uploaded to Marvel’s various social media accounts. The image, which you can see below, shows The Human Storm flying around a retrofuturistic version of New York, the US city that the group operates out of.

In a Marvel.com article accompanying the above X/Twitter post, the comic titan also teased some key story details about its Fantastic Four movie. Indeed, the piece links out to a page called the Future Foundation, a fictional organization created by Reed Richards for the betterment of humanity that first appeared in Marvel comics in July 2010. The page in question contains five downloadable comics, from throughout the group’s illustrious literary history, that further underline Galactus and The Silver Surfer’s involvement, plus the film’s likely 1960s setting – the latter of which was first teased in a Fantastic Four movie poster alongside the film’s other February announcements.

That’s not the only fan theory to emerge in the wake of the Johnny Storm-starring image. Its depiction of a different New York City also suggests that The Fantastic Four will actually take place in an alternate universe to the MCU, with fans predicting that the group will eventually cross over into the MCU (designated Earth-616 by Marvel) as part of the MCU’s ongoing Multiverse Saga. We’re not sure how they’ll do so yet but, as MCU leaker Alex P claimed on X/Twitter: “They [Marvel] need to establish just how big the threat this [Multiverse] Saga can be that it can even cross over to different universes. So yes, they [the Fantastic Four] are important.”

As for which comic series (and the writers/artists behind their creation) will inspire the plot, director Matt Shakman, who helmed all nine episodes of WandaVision, told Inverse: “[We’re] going back to [Stan] Kirby and [Jack] Lee and [John] Byrne, and following all the way up to what’s happening, certainly [Jonathan] Hickman and [Mark] Waid and Ryan North, what he’s been doing. I’m trying to figure out who these characters are to me and how to bring them to life in the best possible way, and that’s really where I’ve started and how we’ve approached it.”

One thing that’s clear about Shakman’s adaptation is that it’ll retain the “messiness” of the Fantastic Four’s ‘Found Family’ vibe. 

“It’s different in so many ways because they are a true family,” he told ScreenRant in November 2023. “Not a family you find along the way like the X-Men or the Avengers, but true family with all the messiness of a family like on Monarch[:Legacy of Monsters]. With all the love, the hurt, and the complexity of that. And also, they approach things with a sort of an optimistic and scientific approach that is very different from these other Marvel characters that I absolutely love, but how they solve problems is unique and I’m excited about it as well. I hope folks like it when we put it out.”

Away from the source material, Shakman also found a surprise influence in the form of the cult cringe-comedy show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – a series he directed 43 episodes of.

“I’ve learned so much from working on It’s Always Sunny over the years,” he told ComicBook.com. “Those guys [show creators Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton] bring a unique combination of playfulness and precision, and I think you have to have both of those things in everything you make. You have to still be a kid in the sandbox, playing and inventing, but you also have to be rigorous about what you’re doing and comedy is even more rigorous than anything else. The precision of making something funny is often way harder than making something really complicated with special effects work.”

The Fantastic Four trailer: is there one?

No, there isn’t. We won’t see one until much closer to the film’s release, either.

Where can I watch the previous Fantastic Four films?

You can watch 2005’s Fantastic Four, 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and 2015’s Fantastic Four on Disney Plus, regardless of where you live. As long as you’re subscribed to one of the world’s best streaming services, then, you can watch it in the US, UK, and Australia. 

How will The Fantastic Four impact the MCU?

The short answer is: we don’t know. If, as it’s been heavily rumored, the group will wing their way into the MCU after The Fantastic Four ends, the famous quartet will surely have a big role to play in the rest of the Multiverse Saga, which began with Marvel Phase 4 and will end with Marvel Phase 6.

We shouldn’t expect to see Mr Fantastic and company in the next Avengers movie, though. According to reports, the Marvel supergroup won’t be part of Avengers 5, which is now rumored to be getting directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who have four of the best Marvel movies in recent memory. It’s likely, then, that we won’t see them team up with the MCU’s most notable heroes until Avengers: Secret Wars.

As for potential spin-offs from this movie, there were reports (in October 2022) that a Silver Surfer TV show was tentatively in development for Disney Plus. We’ve heard little about this possible project since, however, so it remains to be seen if it’ll ride the crest of The Fantastic Four‘s wave and see the light of day.

For more Marvel-based coverage, find out how to watch the Marvel movies in order, learn more about Deadpool and Wolverine, which hits theaters on July 26, or get the lowdown on Agatha All Along, the next MCU Disney Plus series that’ll arrive on September 18.