Stan Lee Helps Marvel Officially Announce Fantastic 4 From Beyond The Grave
Marvel had a huge reveal on Monday paving the way for all of the new Phase Four projects. One of them will be the Fantastic 4 hitting screens.
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Marvel continues to expand their offerings on screen and they are in the middle of launching a new massive phase of films and television series. There’s so much to get excited about with what’s to come. Part of this new phase is introducing legacy comic book names into the official Marvel Cinematic Universe ranks for the first time. One of those is going to be Fantastic 4, a movie about the truly iconic group from the comic book pages. And now we’ve got nearly official word that these folks are joining the ranks sooner than later, bring them into the fold possibly at the end of Marvel’s Phase Four (fitting timing if there ever was any).
The word that Fantastic 4 would be part of this Marvel phase of movies came via a promotional video for the studio. It is more than three minutes long and offers a chance for fans to look back at what happened in the last Phase Three before moving ahead into what’s to come. It will give you many of the feels, drawing back on the connections and characters from previous stories before looking ahead at future projects. Check out what is planned and pay attention at the end with news about this famous foursome.
With a voiceover from the late Stan Lee, we are treated to a catchup of sorts that reminds us of all the emotion and action served up over the last few years during Marvel’s Phase Three which culminated with the events of Avengers: Endgame. And then it’s a look at things to come. Some have definitive release dates like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange and Multiverse of Madness, Eternals, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and many more. In the end, we are given the Fantastic 4 logo, a definitive sign that this group is coming and could be part of how the studio ramps up for future phases.
Right now very little is known about any new Fantastic 4 movie and that’s likely the case for the studio as well. Marvel has always played the long game with their stories and characters, setting up threads and arcs years in advance. So they likely have the outline of how this group will work its way into the universe. But in terms of casting, story, or even release dates, those are still very much a work in progress. Though choosing to attach the logo at the end of this video clearly means something big is in store.
Fantastic 4 will make its way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox back in 2019. That brought over these characters and others like the X-Men who’ve long been conspicuously omitted from stories because of character rights. That won’t be the case anymore and they clearly have a big role to play. Whether it’s an origin story around how they get their powers or if they return from a galactic mission to join the story isn’t totally clear at this point either.
The Fantastic 4 have had two different unsuccessful iterations so far on the big screen in Tim Story’s 2005 version and then again in 2015 with Josh Trank at the helm. Both were critically panned at the time. This new story will offer a fresh reset for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and hopefully, the path and characters they choose will stick. It’s a group that deserves much better than what it’s gotten on-screen and it looks like we will get a chance to now see them in the middle of the MCU.Fantastic 4
