Mister Fantastic's MCU debut was briefer than we would have liked, but seeing John Krasinski play a Reed Richards Variant in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was still a real treat for fans. He was quickly killed off by a rampaging Scarlet Witch, of course, though the hope now is that Krasinski will reprise the role in 2024's Fantastic Four reboot.
While it's widely believed that Reed was added to the Doctor Strange sequel relatively late in production, writer Michael Waldron has now confirmed that he always planned to include the Fantastic Four leader.
However, this unfilmed post-credits scene would have had vastly different implications for the MCU.
"I always wanted Reed Richards in this thing," Waldron tells Empire Online. "In my very first draft, I wrote a tag just for the hell of it, of the events of the movie being recorded and reviewed by somebody in the Baxter Building, and a stretchy hand coming into frame to run it back."
"Reed is probably my favourite Marvel comics character," he adds, "so I was always gunning to get him in here somewhere."
Reed keeping a close eye on the chaos caused in the Multiverse could have been an indication that Waldron had hoped to introduce the Interdimensional Council of Reeds. That group assembled to counter threats to every reality, though doing so meant leaving their own worlds behind, something that was unfathomable to the Marvel Universe's Mister Fantastic.
Marvel Studios is taking its time introducing the characters acquired during the Disney/Fox merger, leaving us in the dark when it comes to how Marvel's First Family will factor into the MCU's future.
Has the team been around for a while or will this be their first adventure? Kevin Feige has hinted that the plan is to skip the team's origin story, so we're guessing the answer is somewhere between both options.
Fantastic Four is set to be released on November 8, 2024.