First “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” Footage Revealed Ahead of Trailer Drop
We open with giggling children in mid-20th-century America, racing through the city streets to arrive at a storefront window where, behind the glass, are a series of rabbit-eared television sets. On all the TVs, we see footage of the United States space program, including a “Prepare 4 Launch” alert on the central TV. Marvel Studios has dropped this little teaser to hype The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ larger trailer reveal coming tomorrow, Tuesday, February 4.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps will finally reintroduce Marvel’s First Family to the big screen, with the new superheroic quartet now played by Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/Thing).
Have a look at the teaser here:
The Future Foundation invites you to take your first steps into a fantastic new era.
Launch coverage begins at 7AM ET | 4️⃣AM PT: https://t.co/Wkr1OLbP1q pic.twitter.com/aHM7K6wt0H
— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) February 3, 2025
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is directed by Matt Shakman, who did excellent work spearheading Marvel’s very first Disney+ series, WandaVision, which was also a period piece—only one that cycled through periods on an episode-to-episode basis. First Steps will pit the Core Four against the supervillains Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), who have their sights set on Earth. During the reveal at Comic-Con (when it was announced that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to Marvel, this go-round as Dr. Doom, in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday), Shakman also shared a teaser reel of the film, which showed the Core Four’s astronaut outfits, a massive spaceship, and a glimpse of Galactus hovering over Earth. The film’s score will come from Oscar-winner Michael Giacchino.
We’ve learned a bit about the new look of Fantastic Four, including the design of Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s The Thing. This rock-skinned giant has been played in the past by Jamie Bell in 2015’s Fantastic Four and Michael Chiklis in 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The technology has improved so vastly since the last two iterations of the Thing that Shakman and his creative team knew they were coming in with an ability to render him more realistically than ever before.
“We want to be true to comics, but we also want to be true to life,” Shakman said during the Comic-Con panel. “We talked to scientists, we talked to animal experts, we talked to everybody. We went out into the desert to find the best rock to make the Thing right.”
The method for conjuring a realistic Thing included motion capture technology, the same process that Mark Ruffalo underwent during all his years of playing the Hulk. At Comic-Con, Moss-Bachrach revealed that he’d received a very helpful message: “I got a really nice text message from Mark Ruffalo just to demystify the process of motion capture because I’ve never done it before,” Moss-Bachrach said. “He sent a long, generous text message taking a way a bit of how I was scared of the technology.”
The Thing and the rest of his fellow Four will factor into the upcoming Marvel phases in a major way, with their inclusion for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars already confirmed.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps touches down in theaters on July 25, 2025.
Featured image: Featured image: THE FANTASTIC FOUR. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.
