With a setup like this, it’s hard to imagine a problem that can’t be overcome.
And yet, something’s gone horribly wrong.
“Cut the power!
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, and Joseph Quinn in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
Cut the power!”
screamsPedro Pascal, in character as Reed, a.k.a.
Fantastic, the leader of the Fantastic Four.
For once, the Fantastic Four are at a loss.
The pressure on our heroes is at its highest."
Even in this hour of crisis, they are joined byJoseph Quinnas Johnny Storm, a.k.a.
Human Torch, andVanessa Kirbyas his sister, Sue Storm, a.k.a.
Together, they are Marvels First Family, the group that kicked off the modern age of superheroes.
To do that, they have to make the future feel new again.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, and Joseph Quinn in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
Reed, the stretchable man, and sometimes see-through Sue also bickered like a real married couple.
Even today, those issues are still crackling with creativity and energy.
Alas, recapturing that magic on the movie screen has proved elusive.
Joseph Quinn, Vanessa Kirby, and Pedro Pascal in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
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Instead, the film begins on a parallel world in the Marvel multiverse where history has unfolded differently.
In this world, Reed Richards exists to invent them.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
“I was really interested in imagining the Fantastic Four being astronauts.
Shakman and his team have done their best to make those lofty ideas feel tactile and real.
The Fantasticar is a perfect example of this film’s retrofuturist gestalt ofMad Men-esque period detail andJetsons-style invention.
Joseph Quinn and Pedro Pascal in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
Even a lot of the interface controls inside are very much based on more of a ’50s look.”
So it does feel like home to me, and the production did a beautiful job recreating that.
It was so cool to walk down and see the hat seller and the fish seller.
Joseph Quinn in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
I was shocked that we were outside of London because it fully felt like the Lower East Side."
Grimm/the Thing is actually the second character Moss-Bachrach has portrayed in the MCU.
He previously played Micro, Frank Castle’s “guy in the chair” inThe Punisherseries.
Vanessa Kirby in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
“Then Ben Grimm is this Kirby amalgamation.
So, in my brief two portrayals of Marvel characters, I’ve hit the two big guys.
It’s a deep honor that I take to heart.”
Pedro Pascal in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’.Jay Maidment/© MARVEL 2025
All in the family
Setting and character go hand-in-hand with the Fantastic Four.
Everyone involved knew that capturing that dynamic would be the key to success for this adaptation.
“Casting was the number one challenge for the film,” Shakman says.
‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ director Matt Shakman in EW’s San Diego 2024 Comic-Con studio.Max Montgomery
Who was the best married couple?
Who were the best siblings and honorary uncle?
The stars ofFirst Stepsshould be familiar faces for fans of prestige TV.
Vanessa Kirby made her name onThe Crown, while Quinn broke through on season 4 ofStranger Things.
Quinn leaned on his costar for advice only for Pascal to soon learn that he too was being sought.
By that point, it was starting to feel like destiny.
“It was a big strange thing that I hadn’t planned on happening.
I was so charmed when I heard this voice saying, ‘What are you doing here?’
I look up, and it’s Matt Shakman.
It’s his daughter!
Literally the Sunday after he and I had met to talk about the project.
For Moss-Bachrach, getting cast was easy compared to what it took to bring the Thing to life.
It was a real team effort,” says the actor.
It was an ongoing and never-ending kind of dialogue between me and the designers and the VFX people.
It was a unique experience.
“Matt Shakman,The Fantastic Four: First Stepsdirector
Moss-Bachrach would do multiple takes with different getups.
In some takes, a stand-in wore a costume built to the Thing’s proportions.
“The Fantastic Four are very close.
They’re family before they go out to space and get mutated,” Moss-Bachrach says.
That’s really valuable in terms of intimacy and the way that we behave with each other.”
“There is such a thing as too many practical effects,” the actor says with a laugh.
Quinn wanted to do something different.
“He’s a man that leads with a lot of bravado, which can be an affront sometimes.
But also he’s funny,” Quinn says.
He was branded as this womanizing, devil-may-care guy, but is that sexy these days?
I don’t think so.
Johnny is the little brother of the Fantastic Four, Quinn notes.
But that’s not the only quality that defines him.
“He is really smart,” Shakman says.
He’s Sue’s brother, which means they are cut from similar cloth."
Sue has accomplished just as much in the political realm.
“Between the two of them, they’re building an idealistic society.”
So, throughoutFirst Steps, a great shadow will fall across this utopia.
Remember that “all is lost” moment?
Over the years, Sue evolved in several ways.
Indeed, Sue’s pregnancy will play a significant part in the plot ofFirst Steps.
I was obsessed with that chapter of her life.
How can you be all the things?
Reed has figured out space travel, and invented robots and flying cars.
But how much of that will help when a massive space god comes to eat the Earth?
“It is definitely a scale of threat which Reed has never experienced,” Pascal says.
“I didn’t want to just use motion-capture for Galactus.
I wanted to actually have someone there embodying the part,” Shakman says.
How do you film Mount Rushmore?"
Positioning Galactus as the antagonist also distinguishesFirst Stepssince previous Fantastic Four movies all started with Doctor Doom.
“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.”
Shakman made the MCU viable on TV by directingWandaVision, and Pascal has already elevated multiple other franchises.
“It was really intimidating,” Pascal says about living up to Reed Richards.
Even if they can’t solve everything, it’s worth a try.
