The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in theaters on July 25, with WandaVision director Matt Shakman at the helm. However, when the movie was first announced, it was with Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home's Jon Watts in the director's chair.
The filmmaker walked away from his version of the Fantastic Four reboot in April 2022, and he's finally broken his silence on saying goodbye to Marvel's First Family (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Acknowledging that he was "out of gas" after Spider-Man: No Way Home, Watts explained, "The emotional strain of having to go through all of those COVID protocols while also trying to make something creative while also trying to make sure that your cast and crew were all safe — literally, people could’ve died if you did things wrong — that and the postproduction process was very difficult."
"When you’re doing [visual effects work], there’s a whole international component to it where you’re using vendors from all over the world, and the supply chain had been interrupted because of COVID," he said of the Spider-Man threequel's pandemic-related struggles. "It was really hard to get effects done in a traditional way."
Walking away from the MCU wasn't easy for Watts, and he decided to focus on Wolfs, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Unfortunately, that project wasn't without its issues, as the filmmaker had expected it to play in theaters. Instead, it streamed on Apple TV+, and in response to the studio's betrayal, Watts chose to scrap plans for a sequel.
Back to Watts' Fantastic Four, and the filmmaker explained that he'd agreed to helm the reboot in the space between Far From Home and No Way Home. It wasn't until the time came to shift focus to the superhero team that he realised he couldn't do right by the project.
"I am out of gas. The COVID layer on top of making a giant movie layer, I knew I didn’t have what it would’ve taken to make that movie great. I was just out of steam, so I just needed to take some time to recover. Everyone at Marvel totally understood," he confirmed. "They had been through it with me as well, so they knew how hard and draining that experience has been."
"In the end, very satisfying, but at some point, if you can’t do it at the level that you feel like you need to for it to be great, then it’s better to not do it." Watts added that he's excited to see what Shakman came up up, but confessed that, "it’s going to be totally surreal experience for me to go and watch that movie."
We don't know how different Watts' vision was for the heroes, though many fans are convinced it would have featured a cameo from Spider-Man and likely been set in the present-day MCU.
Will Watts return to Marvel Studios? While that remains to be seen, he's passed the web-slinger's reins to Destin Daniel Cretton for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, so his time in that corner of the MCU is likely over.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set to be released in theaters on July 25, 2025.