While the trailers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps have generated plenty of excitement among fans of Marvel's First Family, we've seen surprisingly little of the team's superpowers.
There's been enough to confirm they'll be portrayed in a comic-accurate fashion, but will Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben do anything truly spectacular? That depends on how much filmmaker Matt Shakman has embraced the source material, but when it came to The Thing, realism was key.
The Fantastic Four movies from the mid-2000s brought the Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed superhero to life with a practical suit. The 2015 reboot, meanwhile, used VFX, but much of what makes The Thing his iconic self was lost in translation.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps' take on Ben will also be CG, but he so far looks more in line with what you'd expect from the character. It turns out the key to portraying him in an authentic way was using a mixture of performance capture, a stand-in wearing a practical suit, and an actual rock that the crew named "Jennifer."
Shakman tells Empire Online, "We went out to the desert and found a rock that looked exactly how we thought The Thing should look, and we filmed it in every single shot that The Thing appears in in the movie, under every lighting environment."
Ebon Moss-Bachrach was also on hand to discuss his approach. "It’s a little bit heady to think about all the hundreds of people that are helping animate this character. I just had faith that they would make my performance so much cooler. I’m very, very happy with the way Ben looks."
"He’s a Lower East Side guy," the actor added. "A lot of this character was a homage to his father, and that, to me, is very meaningful."
Tickets for The Fantastic Four: First Steps are expected to go on sale later this week. In the meantime, we have some fantastic new logos for the movie, which you can check out below.
Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet.
Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.
Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, and Natasha Lyonne have been cast in mystery roles. Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom is rumoured to appear, though that's surely a given with Avengers: Doomsday on the way.
Director Matt Shakman worked with both Avatar: The Way of Water co-writer Josh Friedman and WandaVision's Cam Squires on The Fantastic Four: First Steps' screenplay, with Eric Pearson (Black Widow) later coming on board for a final polish.
The movie is set to be released in theaters on July 25, 2025.