First Steps’ Will Be Different From Previous Versions

The first trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps marks a major turning point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it features the arrival of Marvel’s first family into the MCU. While Captain America and Namor predate the Fantastic Four comics, their creation in 1961 gave birth to the Marvel Universe and built the foundation to spawn beloved characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and many more. Fans have been waiting for them to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe since it began in 2008 with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk.

However, this is far from the Fantastic Four’s first time on the big screen. This is the fourth cinematic incarnation of the famous heroes. There was the never-intended-to-be-released low-budget B-movie from 1994, the two moderately successful but critically dismissed movies in the 2000s, and the infamous 2015 flop. While characters like The Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers have excelled on screen, the Fantastic Four have had a rough go of it, so much so that general audiences might be apprehensive of another Fantastic Four movie. After the previous attempts, why would they think this new one would be any good?

Marvel Studios is putting its full faith behind the upcoming movie and has made a few key creative choices that will let it stand apart from the previous film incarnations.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Release Date

July 23, 2025

Director

Matt Shakman

Writers

Jeff Kaplan, Josh Friedman, Ian Springer, Eric Pearson, Peter Cameron

Producers

Jamie Christopher, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Tim Lewis

Franchise(s)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

1960s Period Setting

Immediately, what stands out about The Fantastic Four: First Steps is that it is a 1960s-period piece. More accurately, it takes place in an alternate universe in the 1960s that features retro-pop futurism inspired by the period’s sci-fi, with a distinct hint of Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland. This contrasts with the previous film versions, which were all contemporary set films from when they were made.

Placing The Fantastic Four: First Steps in the 1960s ties the film to the comic roots of the characters, as they were created during that period. That was arguably the moment when they were their most popular at Marvel, with the legendary 102-issue run of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby rightfully earning the title “Greatest Comic Magazine.” This is also a concept that was originally pitched by future Ant-Man director Peyton Reed in the early 2000s when he tried to make a Fantastic Four movie at 20th Century Fox, but they instead opted for the modern-day set film from director Tim Story. Maybe had 20th Century Fox gone that route back in 2005, the MCU Fantastic Four would look very different.

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No Origin Story

The Fantastic Four: First Steps has already promised the movie will not be an origin story, though fans will still get to see the team’s origin as recounted through news footage. This contrasts sharply with the previous three attempts to bring The Fantastic Four to the big screen, which followed the traditional superhero model of using the first film as one giant origin story. In the original comics, the team’s origin takes up about five whole pages, but the movies tended to stretch it out.

The 2005 Fantastic Four film uses the entire film to get the heroes used to adjusting their powers, with the more traditional setup of The Fantastic Four as celebrity superheroes not fleshed out until the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. In 2015, Fantastic Four (mockingly called Fant4stic by many), it takes 45 minutes of the movie 1 hour and 42-minute runtime for them to get their powers, and they only move into the Baxter Building at the end of the film. The 1994 Roger Corman film certainly gets the closest to the comics, but it still spends a lot of time, in the beginning, laying out the team’s origin before they get their powers.

The Fantastic: First Steps will start with the team already established as being active heroes within their universe with their powers already under control. Audiences are likely familiar enough with the team’s origin that Marvel Studios can rightfully skip it. It looks to capture the feeling of opening up a Fantastic Four comic in the middle of its run. The Fantastic Four: First Steps, alongside Superman, which opens two weeks before, are two superhero movies that skip the origin story to avoid treading familiar water and create new stories that justify another film version of these characters.

Embracing the Comic Book Aspects

Despite Fantastic Four being one of Marvel’s most sci-fi comic book titles Marvel has ever published, the film adaptations have tended to play down the more colorful flights of fancy from the characters. 2005’s Fantastic Four kept the story largely contained inside the Baxter Building, with Doctor Doom reimagined from a ruler of a European nation to a CEO. The movie closely tries to follow the model set by Spider-Man three years prior. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer made the controversial decision to reimagine Galactus as a giant space cloud as opposed to a giant titan, likely out of fear that it would look “silly.” Fant4stic tried to do the Batman Begins gritty realistic reimaging of The Fantastic Four with a body horror focus that also largely was filmed in an underground bunker lab.

Instead of showcasing The Fantastic Four as explorers going to strange new worlds and dimensions, the previous films felt like they wanted to downplay the ‘fantastic’ part of The Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four: First Steps, though, is fully embracing the fantastical elements of the source material. From the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. to Galactus being imagined in his traditional comic book look, with the big pointy purple helmet, this is a Fantastic Four movie that fans have been waiting years to see.

Colorful Costumes

When The Fantastic Four were originally introduced, they didn’t have superhero costumes. The classic blue costumes would not appear until The Fantastic Four #3 in 1962, and since then, it has been a staple of the team with a few different reimagings. The 1994 film adapted the design from the comics introduced by John Bryne in Fantastic Four #256 from July 183, which saw the team’s outfits have high collars and a white accent color instead of the traditional black that most fans know, as well as a slightly darker blue.

2005’s Fantastic Four design tries to go for the platonic ideal of what fans think of when they imagine The Fantastic Four, a blue jumpsuit with black accents, but in a 21st century way, including collared necklines that open up the suit and the logo being smaller, and on the left side of the chest as opposed to smack-dab in the center. Meanwhile, the 2015 film drastically reimagined the suits, removing any sense of color and making them all black and looking to capture the feel of a do-it-yourself look. The Thing also doesn’t wear pants for some reason.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps costumes are going for something iconic but also unique. It feels like a nice mix of the 1994 and 2005 films but done through the lens of the 1960s in which The Fantastic Four were created. It takes the white collar associated with the 1980s era but uses the bright blue from the costume’s very first appearance. Instead of a classic jumpsuit, the costumes are modeled after 1960s fashion, with a cloth look that makes them look less like traditional superhero suits and more like a mix of fashion and space tech.

No Doctor Doom (Yet)

Doctor Doom is The Fantastic Four’s greatest enemy and the most famous villain in the Marvel Universe. While Doctor Doom did not appear until The Fantastic Four #5, he is as much a part of the Fantastic Four story as the cosmic rays that gave them their powers. As has been the thinking for superhero movies until Iron Man, the common assumption was the first movie would feature the hero’s arch-enemy. All previous films based on The Fantastic Four have featured Doctor Doom, with both the 2005 and 2015 films tying his origin in with the team, despite that not being the case in the comics. The film adaptations of Doctor Doom have been controversial, with major changes made to his character.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is breaking away from convention, and Doctor Doom is not scheduled to appear. While we certainly expect Doctor Doom to appear in the film’s post-credits scene, setting up Robert Downey Jr.’s appearance as the villain in Avengers: Doomsday, Doctor Doom is not part of The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ storyline. Instead, the movie’s primary threat is Galactus and the Silver Surfer, two characters who last time were saved for the 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer. Here, they are put as the first on-screen threat audiences will see the MCU Fantastic Four face, saving their eventual face-off with Doctor Doom for a later date. Maybe giving The Fantastic Four time to develop their story apart from Doctor Doom will give their eventual face-off more weight and breathing room than past film adaptations.

All these elements certainly point to The Fantastic Four: First Steps being far different from any previous film adaptation that has come before and enough to entice audiences as being something different than what they’ve seen before. In fact, it has the potential to not only be unlike any Fantastic Four movie before, but any MCU movie.

Watch the trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps below and see the movie in theaters on Jul. 25, 2025.