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By Mia TaylorFeatures Correspondent
marvel studiosMarvel Entertainment has revealed the cast of the next Fantastic Four installment, and it’s notably half-British. Can this new cast turn things around for the previously failed franchise?
Marvel Entertainment marked February 14 this year not with flowers and candy, but with the big reveal of its cast for the upcoming Fantastic Four movie. The latest version of the franchise will be directed by Matt Shakman and will hit theaters on July 25, 2025.
Marvel Entertainment confirmed in an announcement on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) that it has cast Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn for the next installment.
This will be the fourth Fantastic Four film, following the releases of previous films in 2005, 2007 and 2015 based on the Marvel Comics superhero team. For those who need a refresher, the 2005 release of Fantastic Four was not well received by critics. Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it only one 28% and BBC cultural critic Owen Gleiberman called it “cheesy (and) messy.“Still, the film held its own at the box office, earning $333 million (£264 million) worldwide.
AlamyThe 2007 release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer fared better, winning 38% from Rotten Tomatoes critics who called it an “improvement over its predecessor” but “nonetheless a youthful, simplistic picture that has few benefits beyond its special effects.” The film lasted approximately $289 million (£229 million) globally. In the next installment, in 2015, the franchise fell drastically and critics gave it a only 9% about rotten tomatoes. BBC Culture’s Gleiberman called it “just a small fragment of an origin story“Its box office earnings were also mediocre, at $167 million (£133 million) overall globally, putting it well behind the 2005 and 2007 offerings.
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Despite these realities, Marvel is moving forward with the Fantastic Four franchise. And this time, the star lineup includes two British actors. Kirbyof English stage, television and film fame, whose most recent role included a BAFTA award-winning performance as Princess Margaret in the Netflix series The Crown. There’s also quinn, who is perhaps best known for his renowned role as Eddie in Strange thingsalso from Netflix.
The cast is completed by someone born in the United States. Moss-Bachrachbest known for his Emmy award role in the bear and which previously appeared in the short-lived television series. The Punisher, which ran between 2017 and 2019 and Pascalfrom Chile, who has had key roles in a string of hits including Disney+’s The Mandalorian, HBO’s Game of Thrones and Last of Us, as well as the Netflix series Narcos.
So far, film and culture critics have offered positive reactions to Marvel’s casting and more moderate — but hopeful — support for the decision to make another installment of the struggling film franchise.
Actors
The cast of the next Fantastic Four may not be big-name action heroes on par with Will Smith in his heyday or, more recently, Dwayne JohnsonBut that doesn’t mean Marvel’s casting lacks star power or appeal, critics say.
“This is a cast of superheroes, at least to movie critics, who have been praising their talent for years,” he says. Amy Nicholson, film and television critic for Rotten Tomatoes. “Whoever created them seems to be chasing the opportunity to make a comic book movie with truly phenomenal performances. I hope they get it, for the sake of the actors.”
In fact, Nicholson argues that perhaps we’ve all become too accustomed to seeing only highly successful celebrities playing these roles.
“Hollywood has become too dependent on stars,” Nicholson continues. “Lately, nothing over a couple million dollars, much less a superhero franchise, gets the green light without big names.”
Those kinds of casting requirements impede the development of new movie stars in the same way that Superman launched Christopher Reeve’s career, Nicholson explains. In an ideal world, more producers would take the same direction as the next Fantastic Four installment, he says.
And what is more, Ben Saundersprofessor of comics, cartoon studies and pop culture at the University of Oregon, who founded the school’s comics studies program, says: If Pascal, who has had a number of high-profile roles, is not a bonafide actor star, then who is it?
As for the British-leaning cast resurrecting the ailing franchise, that’s not out of the realm of possibility, Saunders suggests.
“It wouldn’t be the first time that British talent has helped revitalize and reimagine some wonderful pieces of American culture,” Saunders observes. “In the mid-1980s, many of the best British comics creators found themselves working for American publishers and some of the most influential comics of the late 20th century come from that period.”
You don’t have to look any further than the two British creators behind it. US-based DC Comics’ Watchmen – Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Thanks to the talents of UK-born Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen became one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed graphic novels (and later made into a film and TV series) of the last 50 years, says Saunders .
AlamyIt remains to be seen whether two British actors will have a similar impact on the success of the next Fantastic Four installment. But Sean BoelmanFandomWire’s film critic, says the decision to cast the duo opens the door for intriguing character development options.
“It will be interesting to see what Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn bring to their roles,” he says. “Interestingly, the characters they play, Sue and Johnny Storm, are siblings.”
Will the film take into account Kirby and Quinn’s shared nationality to make the film’s characters British? Boelman muses. “It would be a far cry from the versions played by Jessica Alba and Chris Evans in the 2000s, and Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan in 2015, but it could favor the chemistry of the actors in this family dynamic,” she says.
And, like Saunders, Boelman says: British or not, the newly selected cast has enough star power to draw audiences. He calls it the most star-studded cast outside of the Eternals, which included the likes of Angelina Jolie and Selma Hayek.
“The Fantastic Four are known as Marvel’s ‘first family,’ so this movie doesn’t need a ‘movie star’ on the level of Angelina Jolie or Salma Hayek to connect with audiences,” says Boelman. “Fresh but familiar faces like Pascal and Quinn will be more than enough to excite moviegoers.”
Lagging success for the Fantastic Four
While previous Fantastic Four installments have not been favorites among critics circles, Saunders takes issue with those who suggest the films did not do well commercially.
“There have been three Fantastic Four movies this century, and the first two did very well,” suggests Saunders. “They made millions. They wouldn’t have made the second one if the first one hadn’t done well. The cultural amnesia here is probably a function of the fact that the last Fantastic Four movie flopped, and probably rightly so, but that’s how it was. No. “It was made by Marvel Studios. It was made by (20th Century) Fox.”
If the next installment in the franchise flops like the 2015 film did, Saunders maintains that won’t be a byproduct of the actors cast. “I’ve seen all of the current cast in other projects and they are a talented group,” she continues. “The problem won’t be the cast: they’re fantastic. The script is what matters.”
There’s also hope in the fact that the upcoming release will be Marvel Studios’ first in the franchise, which “matters a lot for the bottom line.” adds Saunders.
Boelman offers a similar assessment, suggesting that the Fantastic Four franchise has so far suffered from a lack of quality. But he’s also hopeful that the next installment will be an improvement.
“The 2005 movie was a moderate financial success and managed to turn a small profit because it was pretty funny,” Boelman says. “The rise of Silver Surfer and the oft-forgotten 2015 reboot flopped, frankly, because no one liked them. If (director) Matt Shakman’s Fantastic Four is of high quality, it will probably do much better at the box office. “Fans liked her previous Marvel Comics outing, WandaVision, so the signs are pointing up.”
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