Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, has always made himself available for the media circuit, while also displaying professional skill at giving cryptic responses to questions about upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe events. However, at a recent roundtable discussion, Feige confidently and graciously allowed us to chat not only about the MCU’s latest film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but in a surprising turn, also spoke on the future of the MCU.
The Nerds of Color were invited to participate in an intimate discussion with the head honcho of the MCU himself, alongside other members of the press. What Feige revealed extended far beyond this Friday’s release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, as he dove into our first confirmed details about X-Men, as well as Avengers: Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It was a conversation where we definitely ate!
One of the first questions asked was about the decision to center the Fantastic Four’s first MCU film around the plot point of Sue Storm and Reed Richard’s firstborn son, Franklin Richards. “I think as always, look at the comics,” Feige says, “There’s great potential in Franklin, there’s great potential in their other child [Valeria], and the reason we decided to do it first was because it had never been done before. There have been four movies, as you’re well aware, and Franklin had never been part of that. So as we were looking for ways to set it apart and do a definitive version of Fantastic Four, we thought the notion of that child and his importance to come would be a good place to start, and that’s what Matt [Shakman] embraced.”
The next question posed to Feige was about the significance of releasing this film today. The question came on the heels of Superman touching upon some of the politically relevant issues we are facing today. Feige responded, “We’ve been working on this movie for many years. And it was always to do what those characters did in the comics in the ’60s and every decade since, which was bring optimism to the world. The idea that the future can be positive through expertise and science and love for your community and those around you. I think we could release this movie at any time, and people would say ‘it really resonates for today.’ That said, I do think it resonates for today. And I think we saw that with [James Gunn’s] movie a couple of weeks ago. That the notion of cynicism put to the side briefly to deal in earnest with positivity is a great thing.”
And I agree with Feige here. The Fantastic Four has always been about looking to a brighter future, and the strength of family and community. And that’s something we really need more than ever.
One of the things audiences will discover within the movie is a spectacular quote from Jack Kirby. It lovingly pays homage to the Kirby and Stan Lee era (The Silver Age of comics) in which Fantastic Four was created. Feige discussed the reverence for Kirby and the significance of the quote. “We never thought about putting it at the front, because that quote (and there are a number of good quotes to choose from with Jack Kirby) — but that one felt very appropriate after you had gotten to know the characters. After you had seen his world and seen his characters, and then his quote is how he puts himself into those characters and into that world. So feeling at the very end of the movie, after you’ve experienced that, you’ve experienced a part of Jack Kirby.”
The Nerds of Color asked Feige how the pressures of fans and the reception of the previous Fantastic Four films influenced the decisions in putting The Fantastic Four: First Steps together. Feige responded, “We thought it was an opportunity. Much like when we started making Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. We looked much more at what had never been done before than what had been done. The testament to the Marvel Comics being so rich and the storylines being so deep, that even after four Fantastic Four movies… there was so much more to tap into. So that’s what we focused on. Which is why Franklin came, and the notion of that world and its own world came about. And the notion — not to keep bringing it back to Jack Kirby – but to embrace his line design. We literally sat with our amazing production designer, and all through post and the effects passes — talking about the Kirby lines, and getting more of the Kirby designs into the shots and backgrounds. Because what that man did by himself with a pencil… pouring out of his imagination. For instance, Galactus, and being able to think that Galactus can be a great, cool, iconic thing, because Galactus has been a great, cool, iconic thing for decades and decades. And not being scared of the Kirby lines, of the Kirby helmet, of the Kirby antlers that come off it… seeing [Ralph Ineson] in that helmet for the first time, even before it was colored, you go. ‘There’s a reason this design works. And it’s because it’s super cool!'”
Feige was then asked how liberating it was to set the movie on a different Earth, parallel to the mainstream MCU (Earth 616/199999). He stated, “It was very freeing, and it was one of the earliest ideas for the movie, and even part of the current saga that’s coming to a close over the next couple years, allowing us to explore and take place in different universes.” The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set on Earth 828 in the multiverse. The only heroes that exist in this universe are the Fantastic Four. So going into this movie, audiences will see and experience a universe from the ground up that they’ve never seen or been introduced to before.
Feige was asked how much Fantastic Four acts as a jumping off point, given the leadup to Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, and particularly the presence of Earth-828.
“It fits in a tremendous amount. And I think about it less about Earth 828 than I think about it as Johnny and Ben and Sue and Reed and Franklin fitting into the to the world to come and the storylines to come… Anything that is considered a jumping off point is good. That is how the comics have kept going for 85 years… This is our 37th movie… It’s kicking off Phase Six (for people who keep track of such things) which comes to a close in Secret Wars. And it very much is certainly the most focused phase. I mean, we’ve had it all already, and it’s all in the works. And not that you asked this question, but unlike Endgame, which really was an ending, [we asked] where do we go from here? What do with this level of success and this level of of finality? We used it to experiment, and we used it to evolve, and then we used it to expand, too much. Secret Wars, as so in the comics, is as much about bringing certain storylines to a close as it is launching a new one, and that’s very exciting, being already well into the development of the next saga.”
Our friends at POC Culture asked Feige how many phases they’ve already delved into for the future. “I mean, we’re working on the next. A Saga is three phases. So we’re working on the next three right now. But really the first one of the next saga is is directly impacted by what we’re doing right now with this movie and Secret Wars.“
Feige was asked about the Fantastic Four’s significance to the future of the MCU. “You know, we want them to take their rightful place within the pantheon of these other heroes, like in the comics. You go back and look through any of the comic stories that inspired any of our movies up to now. Civil War, The Infinity Gauntlet series, etc. The Fantastic Four were in all of those, right? And we couldn’t use them. So, this movie being the intro: Here they are. Get to know them. Hopefully, you’ll love them. The importance that they have in the comics, I hope to bring to the films.”
Feige was asked about how the Fantastic Four’s family dynamic compares to the family dynamic of other MCU groups like Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers. “I think Marvel has always been about family and about found family. In the case of the Guardians, the Avengers, and half-found family/half-actual family in the Fantastic Four. But being Marvel’s first family, that was always going to be at the forefront. And one of the fun things about an Avengers movie is tossing in different personalities and mixing up the those personalities, which is, as I said, they have taken a break from filming now to complete the press junket on this film. But it already is. I’m very, very excited to see the interactions with the other characters that are happening between the Fantastic Four and these other characters.”
The Fantastic Four aren’t, of course, the only heroes to return to the screen in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. Part of the cast announcements included legacy X-Men actors, reprising their roles from the Fox era. As such, someone asked Feige about why the Fantastic Four were recast, but the announced X-Men roles were not. “Because we were doing a standalone Fantastic Four film, and we wanted to launch it like that, for sure.”
POC Culture wanted to know about the casting of Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic. Feige said, “It was knowing his versatility. It was knowing the Pedro that you see in interviews, and how charismatic and dynamic he is. And then you see all of the different versions of characters he’s played, who’ve all been very, very different, leading up to Joel in The Last of Us. And I literally thought, this guy can do anything he sets his mind to. So that is really what gave us the confidence.”
Feige was then asked about plans for the multiple characters introduced in several post-credit scenes from Phase Five who haven’t yet reappeared, such as Eros, Clea, and Hercules. Feige diplomatically replied, “There are plans for some and there are opportunities for all. It’s about finding what the right moment is. Some, maybe we’ll never see again. Some, maybe we’ll see soon. Some, maybe it’ll be like Tim Blake Nelson, you know, 17 years in between them. Who knows. What I love about it is, is it’s as much about the actors as it is about the characters. It’s as much about our enthusiasm and excitement to work with those actors, which is how almost all those came about, but to see where they go. But we will not alter a storyline just to include them simply because they have been seen in the past.”
Feige then dropped some official bombshells about how the MCU is approaching X-Men. He was asked about casting the future projects coming to the MCU, and while no official names have been named, he gave us this insight: “We have our directors, you all know. And it’s starting… It’s official. Jake Schreier is doing X-Men for us. We’re very, very lucky to have him, and very excited…We’re beginning. It’s all starting now. Scripts are underway.”
“Jake is an incredibly smart guy, and he’s incredibly talented filmmaker. We had a great experience with him on Thunderbolts and if you saw that movie, what he did with those character interactions. He also has his pulse on, shall we say, a younger demographic… He’s younger than me, for sure, but he’s tapped into that in a way that I think is important. It was important for Thunderbolts, but it’s much more important for X-Men because X-Men, as it was in the comics, will be very youth-oriented, focused and cast.”
Feige was asked what hasn’t been done yet with X-Men that he would love to see. “There have been a lot [of X-Men movies]. I mean, more than any [other heroes], right? There have been more X-Men movies than there were Spidey movies or Fantastic Four movies. So a lot has been done. But again, because it’s X-Men, because it’s almost, you know, a comic legacy onto itself, there’s so much more to tap into. And there’s so many sagas within sagas for X-Men. That’s part of what we’re talking about now, is which saga to grow and build to, while doing the most important thing, which is introducing all of these characters and giving them their their due in our first film.”
The conversation steered toward the casting of a comics-accurate (that is, shorter than Hugh Jackman) Wolverine, which we we saw in a hilarious scene in Deadpool and Wolverine.
“I’m not going to speak to the makeup of the characters that will be in the first movie, but look at Galactus. Look at Gambit in Deadpool and Wolverine. Look at Wolverine in Deadpool and Wolverine. We want to embrace that which was not embraced 25 years ago, when I was around on those early X-Men movies, which is those, those comics-accurate [elements].” On the timing and release dates for X-Men, Feige simply said, “We have dates held in many years post-Secret Wars, many years.”
On whether this would be a cinematic redemption (in light of previous films’ attempts) for the largest and most dangerous villain of all, Galactus: “Yeah. I mean, I never looked at this as his redemption, but I did look at it as we had gotten to a point, and I hope the audience had too, where people making decisions at studios have gotten to a point where the fear of something being silly is not a reason enough to not attempt it. And you know, even for us going back, I think most things in comics are not silly, I think they’re cool, and I think they’re awesome to bring to life. Loki’s horns comes to mind, when we were doing the first Thor, and that was many years ago now, and it had been a handful of years from the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer that had Galactus in it. And I thought, we don’t want to hide it. He’s gigantic, almost makes no sense, huge horns, and we need to embrace that. Yeah, and we have an actor in Tom, who can wear it, and pull it off. In Ralph, we have the same thing. So it is embracing that, and knowing that those designs are awesome. Those designs stand the test of time over and over and over again.”
Representing The Nerds of Color, I asked about the visual style curated for Fantastic Four, the retro-futuristic ‘60s inspired look, and whether or not that style would be seen in the MCU ever again, given that the Fantastic Four are crossing over with the rest of Earth 616/199999. “Well, I mean, only speaking to to the one we’re working on now and shooting now [Avengers: Doomsday]… for people who know the comics and know the word ‘incursions,’ those are universes coming together… We will see this world that we’ve introduced, and the sets we’re shooting on, all the same sets that we built for Fantastic Four. And it is very fun that, I would say the now-iconic Baxter Building, living room and kitchen, where we saw the Four get to know each other in this movie. Let’s say there are a lot more people in that kitchen, and it’s fun to literally see people coming into each other’s homes.”
POC Culture chimed in again, asking Feige what keeps him motivated at this point in his career. He replied: “Making movies and telling stories, That is really what it does, and particularly now, as surreal as it is, 25 years after being a being a part of those early X-Men movies now, and at least 20 years, I guess, from the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies, which I can’t believe. And again, it was sort of what I’ve talked a lot about. When we got to do Iron Man, we got to the MCU saying, ‘Okay, now that we can make the creative decisions, how would we want to do that?’ And there were a lot of great things we learned we wanted to mimic from those early Marvel movies. And there were a lot of things we wanted to change, like embracing some books in the comics a little bit more. And throughout, you know, our 17, whatever it was up to that point, 15 years of MCU history, we couldn’t do that with Fantastic Four. It is thrilling to be able to to do that, and thinking about those stories, and thinking about the untapped potential of the mutants in particular to come that is very exciting.”
Feige was then asked about Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Frank Castle’s involvement in this installment. “I think there’s a promise at the end of No Way Home, that, as sad as it is that Peter is forgotten by everyone in his life, we are seeing for the first time in the Tom Holland Spider-Man stories him being a proper Spider-Man. Him being by himself, dedicated to saving the city, and dealing with, for lack of better term, street-level crime as opposed to world-ending events that he faced when working with the other characters. So when you do that, you say, ‘Okay, who are the other street-level characters that we’ve never seen him interact with?’ And of course, I love that the Punisher started in a Spider-Man comic. And that great cover? I don’t want to say too much, but Destin — I will say too much. Destin is doing an amazing job right now in that movie, to start shooting very soon. And he’s got eight or nine comic covers up on his wall in his art department that he is bringing to life in this movie.”
Along those lines, we then were able to ask if there were any chemistry reads between Joseph Quinn and Tom Holland, considering that the Fantastic Four guest-stars in Amazing Spider-Man #1, and Johnny Storm and Peter Parker end up becoming close friends in the comic books. Feige offered: “We didn’t do chemistry reads, but whenever we cast it is with that blue sky dream in mind of one day being able to to do that, and that’s a great example. That’s one of the key relationships in Marvel Comics: Johnny Storm and Peter Parker. And we’ve never been able to come close to it before. And now that it is in the realm of what’s possible, that’s exciting! That’s what gets my cape on in the mornings!”
Given that Fantastic Four is the last MCU film audiences will be seeing until Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday, POC Culture asked Feige why it felt like Fantastic Four was the appropriate springing-off point to keep us satisfied before next year’s projects. “I mean, I know what the story of Avengers is, so it feels like enough to me, and it feels like a lot. But you know, like I mentioned before, about what we’ve all talked about, of the over-expansion. Being overzealous, to tell, you know, double the amount of hours of stories in the last five years that we did in the previous 12 years. And I do think a slowdown, which we’ve already started doing with TV and now doing in movies. I love the idea that there’s Fantastic Four, there’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day a year from now, there’s Avengers: Doomsday a year and a half from now. I think that’s okay. I think that’s okay to to let people miss you in the theaters for a little while before coming back in a big way.”
Feige also was asked about the (impeccable) casting of Sacha Baron Cohen as Mephisto in this summer’s Ironheart, and whether there were future plans involving this much-anticipated villain: “Well, he was never part of WandaVision. We’ve talked about that. Matt talked about that. Jac Schaeffer too. He was never part of WandaVision. But the enthusiasm with which he was theorized certainly was cool and was fun to watch. And he’s another character that, you know, pre-MCU would have been, ‘How do you do devil? How do you do that character?’ But he’s a formative character. He was a big part of Thanos’ story in the comics. So again, now that he’s here, the potential is [there].”
Feige was candid about one more thing. When asked a final question about Ryan Reynolds’ future as Deadpool after Deadpool and Wolverine, Feige replied, “We’re in touch with Ryan a lot, so the answer is yes.”
Phew! This admittedly was a lot more than what we journalists expected. But it was ridiculously exciting. We’ll have more coverage soon on the MCU’s future plans and Marvel-related happenings from San Diego Comic-Con 2025. In the meantime, The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters this Friday, July 25!
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