Fantastic Four is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest mystery, and maybe its greatest hope. Beyond who’s playing each member of Marvel’s first family, we’ve been in the dark about most other details until now. On the first episode of the new Official Marvel podcast, president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige appeared as a guest and revealed that Fantastic Four will in fact be a period piece, rather than taking place in the modern-day MCU.
Fans first started speculating that the series might take the universe back in time when its first artwork was revealed, which was in a decidedly mid-century style. While the primary purpose of the art was to reveal the actors behind each member of the team — with Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Ebon-Moss Bachrach as Ben Grimm, and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm — it also suggested to many fans that the movie might take place in the ’60s, the same decade that the Fantastic Four debuted.
But while Feige seems to confirm in his podcast appearance that the movie will take place in the ’60s, he also can’t help but include a few mysterious details to make sure the movie’s intrigue is intact.
“So it is a period piece,” Feige said. “There was another piece of art we released with Johnny Storm flying in the air and making a four symbol, and there was a cityscape in the corner of that image. And there were a lot of smart people who noticed that that cityscape didn’t look exactly like the New York that we know, or the New York that existed in the ’60s in our world. Those are some smart, smart observations.”
This could mean that the movie takes place in an alternate dimension, and the Fantastic Four gang gets sent to the MCU’s Earth during the plot, or maybe it’s some other multiversal shenanigans, but either way Feige isn’t giving us any details just yet.
One other bit of news the Marvel boss shared that should be particularly exciting for fans is that the movie will start filming the day after Comic-Con 2024, which means that Fantastic Four will be in production in just about a month.
As for what we know for sure, Fantastic Four is due out in theaters on July 25, 2025. Along with the core cast, the movie will also star Ralph Ineson as Galactus, Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal (the Silver Surfer), as well as Paul Walter Hauser, Natasha Lyonne, and John Malkovich in unannounced roles.
