Michael Douglas has been announced in the role of Hank Pym, and this only gives us more reason to think that Edgar Wright's Antman might include a 60's flashback as he had previously stated possible (See McNayangano's article sourced below for details).
This opens up a whole new possibility which I believe needs to happen.
I'm picturing a 60's flashback in Wright's Antman, featuring a young Hank Pym/Antman and a young Janet Van Dyne/Wasp. And maybe a young Nick Fury working in a much smaller resourced version of SHIELD. and Dum Dum Dugan, of course. They probably do a mission, just to establish the character existing in that era and give context to who Hank Pym might be today.
It would probably be a small scene, about 10-12 minutes at most.
But once that's established, we have a reference for 60's MCU continuity.
If Marvel got back the rights to FF, imagine them dropping an FF 60's period piece movie that coexisted here. This has often been talked about regarding a possible FF reboot, at least amongst fans of the property.
But imagine a Fantastic Four movie, set in the 60's with cameos from Pym and Janet, hanging out talking to Reed Richards. Janet in rad 60's clothes flirting with SHIELD hunks, much to Hank's chagrin...
But even more than that, imagine the actual FF themselves in the 60's, in full Kirby futuristic glory...in the time of endless optimism and exploring every new frontier that science was making possible for the world. That's the FF. They are pulp adventurers and this is why they don't add up and end up being so hard to translate to our modern audience expectations of a movie.
This is the FF...
not this...
So what u do, is you go back, and do the FF in a time that they make sense.
First movie would be mostly origin, and establish family dynamic, and of course, the villain would be the Mole Man and his underground kingdom. Maybe introduce Doctor Doom as some kind of presence or looming threat for them, due to Reed's history with the man. But first FF movie would just establish 60's MCU and who the FF were and what's great about them. Villain would be pretty unimportant overall, and just be worthy enough to serve out his role as a threat to something. Mole Man is perfect for this. He's obsessed with Sue, whatever. Good.
But then after this, we can get 1 or 2 60's FF sequels, a SHIELD/Invaders movie, featuring Antman and Wasp, even a Cold War Invaders movie of it's own. Featuring Invaders vs some monster, maybe Attuma and the Merman Vampires. But do it in that pulp tone, the same Indiana Jones type adventure tone that the FF would be. That to me is real drama, written largely and in blazing letters across the skyscape.
That is 60's FF/SHIELD/Invaders. Pure pulp action with tons of heart and blood. Check your brain at the theater door, cuz you're not gonna need it. It gives those kind of stories a space to ignore modern conventions of explanation and reality, and immediately opens them up to genuine and crazy possibilities. No cynicism, no irony, just good clean fun. Think Spielberg and George Lucas, James Cameron and company.
The setting of the 60's makes the FF so much more meaningful.
And they could even do some kind of Skrull Invasion, 60's style, between the FF, SHIELD, Invaders films. How perfect would 60's Skrulls be?
Pretty damn perfect, if u ask me...
See and everything about the tone of these 60's MCU movies would be totally spooked out, clandestine spy kind of stuff.
And Fantastic Four wouldn't be the public darlings that they were in the comic books. That wouldn't work. They'd be separate from early SHIELD, but they'd pretty much hide out in the Baxter Building for the most part, being quiet and doing their weird business. And that would bring back the whole classic Thing lurking around town in his creepy old trenchcoat and hat, scaring the crap out of lovers in the park routine. I love that about Thing. That he was at first made to be monstrous and repulsive, this is so important to feel the effects this change has had on Ben Grimm's life.
But their career would only last about 4 or 5 years, then they would disappear without a trace. And regular people wouldn't really know about them. There'd be stories and evidence of this Fantastic Four group and all kinds of other crazy stuff related, but people would accept it now as Cold War propaganda machine and CIA hypnotic memory trigger experiments. Movie set moon landing type hoaxes, purely tin foil hat domain.
So it would add more meaning to when Tony goes public at the end of Iron Man. This would really be the beginning of when this stuff became impossible to keep under the radar, when it busted out in the open, and SHIELD would just be watching, going like "oh Jeez, i can't believe he just did that. holy hell, this is messed up."
Becuz they'd be sitting on all this weird knowledge for the last 40 years, just trying to keep it from all breaking out into the public consciousness. Til Tony Stark comes along and messes that all up with one moment's impulsive confession.
And that brings us to modern MCU and Doom...
So in 60's MCU, Doom would be dictator of Latveria, and emerge as nemesis to the FF. Then however this would happen, after a handful of these 60's movies, FF would end up going interdimensionally or thru one of Doom's time travel platforms to escape him for some reason, and they'd have some thing, some object of power or person or knowledge that Doom needed, even more than he needed power.
And they would end up popping out back into the real world, in the modern MCU, like this would probably be 2023 or so at the earliest, but they'd suddenly emerge, and there'd be a whole horde of bad things right on their tail, worst things than the MCU had previously ever seen before. They would've gone thru this interdimensional escape in order to buy time, basically, for SHIELD and the human race to possibly be able to deal with these things.
And Doom would see them go with this thing, whatever it was, that he needed, and he'd kind of go into hibernation, just playing the part of a non-attention getting East European dictatorship, living like some unaging vampire tyrant in his castle, while the world went on around him. All the while just biding his time for the day he knew the FF was due to return to our dimension, and building his power to make sure he's right there waiting for them to get back. Cuz he needs that thing. It'd probably have to do with his mother.
I don't see Doom as best being played as a Dr No take over the world villain. He's very driven personally, both by a need to proven as better than Richards, that is, his lust for personal attainment of power, and also by his lost mother. Those are the two things most crucial to him, as far as contextually to the rest of the characters in the Marvel Universe. He's an amazing villain, but it's just silly to cast him as willy nilly always wanting to take over the world. That's not what he's about at all. Doesn't make any sense.
He has no worldview like the Red Skull does, except that Doom is superior and all powerful, but he has no philosophy beyond that. He has no desire to see the world end. So this would explain why he goes off the map for so long, waiting and waiting for the day Richards returns with the key he so needs to complete himself.
So this is why Marvel Studios goddam needs the rights back right now from Fox to the FF. I used to be in favor of Fox doing a reboot, and only becuz of Josh Trank. I wanted to see what Trank would do. Now that Hank Pym is definitely announced as giving a possibility to a 60's MCU, I don't care about Trank, just get the rights back to Marvel now so that this can happen. I would be so happy that I would probably go insane, if all this happened. I would be crazy with happiness for the rest of my life. They need to do whatever is necessary to make these movies happen.
I'm not going to explicitly say how far that might need to go, but at any means necessary, Marvel Studios and Disney, get back the FF for god's sakes. Right now. FF would be such a perfect family film product for Disney, in the sense of broad properties that could make kids happy, make moms happy, make dads happy, make brothers happy, make sisters happy. they could even make nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents happy. Orphans would be happy. Disney is crazy not to do something right now to gather the goodwill that all those happy people would excrete like honey.
so just remember what Reed Richards always says...
"100% Marvel cat til' I die. God bless u, one and all..."