Peyton Reed had revealed that long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even born that he had pitched a Marvel film to 20th Century Fox. It was in the early 2000s and the director wanted to have a ‘Fantastic Four‘ movie set in the ’60s to fit when they had initially been introduced in the comics. Not only that, but he was also not interested in telling an origin story and wanted to get right into the action!

Reed loved the idea of the characters and had made a pitch for the movie:

“I actually developed Fantastic Four when it was at Fox, and this would have been about 2002 or 2003. I was doing a movie at Fox at the time, and they were gonna do Fantastic Four, and I went in and pitched to [then Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO] Tom Rothman.”

While he wasn’t specific as to the story he wanted to tell he did have a setting in mind:

“I developed it for about a year and we went through some different permutations and some different writers, but yes, one of the big ideas was a set-in-the-’60s thing that at the time was structurally gonna be basically like [The Beatles’ 1964 comedy-musical] A Hard Day’s Night, where we were not going to even deal with the origin story. It was just going to be like you’re in Downtown Manhattan, and they’re there. It was a pretty exciting idea. At the time — again this was 2002 or ’03 — early on, way pre-MCU, I felt like Fox was not gonna make it.”

While Reed would later get to work with Marvel Studios on ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp‘ you have to wonder if he still harbors an interest in bringing Marvel’s First Family to life. It doesn’t sound as if the studio scrubbed his idea, they just had creative differences as “it felt like they sort of wanted to make a B-movie out of it. So we parted ways.”

As to a future shot of tackling the characters?


We know that he has previously mentioned that he still loves the characters:

“I’ll say that when I was working on Fantastic Four all those years ago, Kevin was at Marvel at the time, he was a junior executive under [longtime Marvel producer] Avi Arad. So Kevin knows of my love and passion for Fantastic Four.

I think there’s been a real reluctance to discuss any of that at Marvel, for two reasons really — because they have Captain Marvel coming out, they have [Avengers] Endgame coming out, there’s a lot of big stuff going on right now.

I also think until that merger is actually final — I honestly don’t know when, I’m hoping it’s soon, but I have no idea — there’s a real reluctance to talk about it because it’s not real yet. And I think there might even be a legal reluctance to talk about it because it’s not real yet.

But I will definitely say I am a huge Fantastic Four fan and the idea of Fantastic Four potentially coming back into the MCU is thrilling to me, in the way that bringing Spider-Man into the MCU was thrilling to me.”

For those keeping track of the Fox buyout, we also know that Marvel Studios hasn’t wanted to put any thoughts or planning into the “X-Men” or “Fantastic Four” franchises until everything is made official in case the deal still somehow falls apart. Reed did say that “there’s some stuff I’ve been developing, quietly developing” but wouldn’t mention if his work was part of the MCU or for a side film. With ‘Ant-Man 3’ having not yet been announced it wouldn’t surprise me his secretive answer was related to the film which he can’t talk about until after ‘Avengers: Endgame.’

When the ‘Fantastic Four’ does come to the MCU would you like to see them introduced in the ’60s or in modern times? Do you think that Peyton Reed might have a shot at bringing these characters to life? Share your thoughts in the comments below, True Believers!

Source: Comic Book