Marvel casts the Fantastic Four

Marvel has announced the casting for their forthcoming new Fantastic Four movie. Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones) will play Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby (The Crown) will play Sue Storm / Invisible Woman, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) will play Ben Grimm / The Thing and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) will play Johnny Storm / The Human Torch, in a film directed by Matt Shakman (WandaVision).

The film, apparently titled The Fantastic 4, introduces the team to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time. It will, however, be the fifth movie to feature the characters. Roger Corman directed the ultra-low-budget The Fantastic Four in 1994 as a rights-holding exercise. 20th Century Fox released Fantastic Four in 2005, starring Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm, a pre-Captain America Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm. Despite mixed reviews, the film was financially successful and spawned a direct sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), which was less successful.

A new version of the team appeared in 2015 as Fantastic Four, starring Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Susan Storm, a pre-Killmonger Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm. The film was poorly received both critically and commercially.

Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige confirmed in 2019 that the team would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Marvel's parent company, Disney. Originally Jon Watts was going to direct, but he was later replaced by Matt Shakman.

The team are iconic because they were the first superhero team created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in November 1961 as part of a revamp of the company's lines, designed to compete with DC Comics' Justice League of America (which saw Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and other characters joining forces). Lee and Kirby created the Fantastic Four as a similar team out from scratch. Lee, with Kirby and other artists, later added new superheroes to the same universe, resulting in The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Falcon and Daredevil. He also resurrected characters Marvel had the rights to from years earlier, resulting in the comics Sub-Mariner and Captain America. Periodically these heroes would team up to fight greater threats, in a run known as The Avengers.

Fantastic Four was also notable for debuting many other characters who would go on to have huge success for Marvel Comics: Namor the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Doom, Black Panther, the Kree and Skrull, Adam Warlock, the Inhumans, Silver Surfer and Galactus. The comic ran almost without interruption until issue #645 in 2015. The comic was rested, although the characters would appear in other titles; fan speculation at the time was that Marvel was downplaying those characters whose movie rights they did not control, as they felt they were giving free advertising to competitors. However, the comic relaunched in late 2018, fans again cynically noting that the 20th Century Fox/Marvel deal was in the wind at the time so it was assumed that Marvel Studios would shortly gain control of the film rights, as was proven to be the case.

The Fantastic 4 will be released on 25 July 2025. It will be one of four Marvel movies scheduled for the year, following Captain America: Brave New World in February and Thunderbolts on 2 May and preceding Blade in November. This will mark a return in force for Marvel, who only have a single film out this year: Deadpool & Wolverine on 26 July.

New STAR TREK movie loses director to FANTASTIC FOUR

The extraordinarily convoluted saga of the next Star Trek film has taken another twist, with director Matt Shakman dropping out to helm Marvel's Fantastic Four.

The next Star Trek movie, the fourteenth overall in the franchise and the fourth produced by J.J. Abrams, has been in development hell ever since the release of the last instalment, Star Trek Beyond, in 2016. In the six years since then - during which time the franchise has made a hugely successful return to television - plans for a new movie have swung between a continuation of the Abrams incarnation to yet another reboot to various side-stories involving different characters. Even Quentin Tarantino was on board for a while, musing a feature-length remake of the classic series episode A Piece of the Action.

After a huge amount of development, Paramount settled on a script by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson, with WandaVision director Matt Shakman signing on to direct in July 2021. The film originally had a slated release date of June 2023, but this was delayed as the Chris Pine-led cast from the last three movies only signed on to reprise their roles on the film in February this year. However, pre-production had not yet started, apparently a result of the studio having to wait until the schedules of the ultra-busy cast had aligned. This delayed production so it would not be possible for Shakman to direct both the Star Trek picture and Fantastic Four, which now as a locked-in release date of 8 November 2024.

Marvel has been developing Fantastic Four for the last couple of years, which will mark the fifth live-action film to feature the classic Marvel superhero team but the first to bring them into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Jon Watts, who had helmed the Sony-Marvel Spider-Man trilogy starring Tom Holland, had been attached but apparently received a counter-offer from elsewhere within the Disney empire to work on a Star Wars TV show instead. Marvel had apparently held talks with other directors, both inhouse (Ant-Man helmer Peyton Reed was reportedly considered at one point) and from outside, before landing on Shakman as their preferred option after his work on Game of Thrones, The Great and WandaVision showed he could handle epic productions, the latter two earning him Emmy nominations as well.

Paramount have now resumed their hunt for a new director. J.J. Abrams remains attached to produce, with actors Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana and John Cho all confirmed to return. The studio has also confirmed that the role of Chekhov, played by the late Anton Yelchin who sadly passed away in 2016, will not be recast.

Next STAR TREK film to reunite the Chris Pine-led reboot cast

JJ Abrams and Paramount have confirmed that the next Star Trek film will reunite the "Kelvin Timeline" cast led by Chris Pine as Captain Kirk. This cast previously anchored three movies in the franchise - Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016) - but their future had been in doubt as the development process over the next movie had gone through convoluted hoops.

Originally, Paramount had pursued a time travel story which would have united Chris Pine as Kirk with Chris Hemsworth playing his father (a role he briefly played in the 2009 reboot movie), until that ran afoul of a pay dispute and was dropped. They then developed a remake of the classic Trek episode A Piece of the Action, with Quentin Tarantino attached to write and direct. Tarantino reduced his involvement to writing and producing, which seemed to defuse Paramount's enthusiasm for the project and it fell off the radar.

Noah Hawley, of Fargo and Legion fame, then came up with a new Trek idea, apparently revolving around a whole new ship and crew not connected with any prior incarnation of the franchise. Paramount developed the idea for a while, before ultimately passing. Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vazquez then pitched a new idea, but that also didn't seem to go anywhere.

In July last year, momentum seemed to pick up again with WandaVision director Matt Shakman was hired to direct the film, in what was seen as a coup for Paramount given the immense success of that show. Writers Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson were assigned and JJ Abrams signed back on to produce. It appears that this idea may have been partially developed with the notion of recasting the crew, but Abrams and Paramount have now confirmed the established cast will return.

As well as Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg and John Cho are expected to reprise their roles as Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty and Sulu respectively.

A sad absence from the cast will be Anton Yelchin as Chekov, who sadly passed away in an accident at his home in 2016. He will not be recast.

With the next Star Trek film expected to start shooting soon for the 22 December 2023 release date, that means this iteration of the Enterprise crew will become the longest-serving in terms of a film franchise, with over fourteen years passing since their first appearance. The original crew, led by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Deforest Kelley as Kirk, Spock and McCoy, made six films in thirteen years between 1979 and 1992 (although Shatner, James Doohan as Scotty and Walter Koenig as Chekov did briefly return in 1994's Generations, which handed the franchise over to the crew of TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation, who made four films between 1994 and 2002).

At seven years and seven months, this will also become the longest gap between Star Trek films since 1979, surpassing the six years and five months between Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and Star Trek (2009).

Next STAR TREK film lands WANDAVISION director, gets green light

Paramount's next Star Trek feature film has hooked WandaVision director Matt Shakman to helm the feature.

Paramount has spent five years playing musical chairs with writers, directors and even castmembers for the follow-up to 2016's Star Trek Beyond. Quentin Tarantino and Noah Hawley both developed scripts, J.J. Abrams signed on and off as producer several times and even the film's setting and cast changed several times, with Paramount considering everything from a film featuring a completely new crew and ship unrelated to any previous version of the franchise to a remake of the classic series episode A Piece of the Action to a straight-up sequel to the previous movies, with Chris Pine's Kirk returning.

Paramount have now greenlit a completely new project, with a script by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson, with Shakman signed up after he guided WandaVision to a startling 23-Emmy nomination haul. It is still unclear if this new script will see the return of the Chris Pine-led "Kelvin" timeline but that should hopefully be clarified soon as casting announcements are made. Paramount wants to fast-track the movie with shooting to start no later than Spring 2022. The film, the fourteenth overall in the franchise, already has a pencilled-in release date of 9 July 2023. J.J. Abrams will return to produce.

Meanwhile, work on the next TV instalments of the franchise are continuing. Animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks and Prodigy are expected to drop over the summer, whilst Season 4 of Discovery is gearing up for an autumn launch, ahead of Picard's second season in early 2022 and Strange New Worlds' first season a few months later.