After Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts walked away from directing duties on Marvel’s highly-anticipated reboot of the Fantastic Four, WandaVision director Matt Shakman was handed the reins. However, that decision required Shakman to walk away from Star Trek 4, and apparently, it wasn’t that tough of a call.
“Movies have different journeys and momentums and and schedules are a little bit mercurial, and so when the ‘Fantastic Four’ opportunity came up, it was just too hard to pass up, and to go back home to Marvel, a place that I worked on ‘WandaVision’ at, with those people who are wonderful collaborators,” Shakman recently told The Wrap.
However, Shakman says filming Star Trek 4 would have been an “unbelievable pleasure” because he truly is a fan of both franchises:
“It’s really a family there and to be able to go back and tackle something that I truly love, and they’re very similar in some ways: they both were launched in the ’60s at the same time, they’re both about optimism and looking to the stars and technology can solve everything and they’re about family too — the family you have, the family you make. So they’re aligned in many ways and speak to my heart and equally, so I’m excited to be working on ‘Fantastic Four.’”
Naturally, Shakman didn’t devolve any details about Fantastic Four‘s plot or its casting, which still continues to spur online theories about who will play the iconic comic book characters and when they might pop up in the MCU first. But the director did reveal that the film will start shooting in “early 2024,” which means Marvel fans could be waiting a while for news on the casting front.
Fantastic Four will hit theaters on February 14, 2025.
(Via The Wrap)