The Marvels is tanking at the box office. The next Avengers movie is being left completely rudderless. How is Marvel to get the fans back on side? How about finally revealing the Fantastic Four cast?
We did our waiting, four years of it (not quite in Azkaban, although we did have to endure Quantumania), but finally it looks like some official casting news for Marvel’s reboot of its First Family is on its way. And reports are so thrilling that they’re successfully distracting us from some concerning Kang Dynasty developments. Such is the power of Daddy Pedro.
Pedro Pascal getting cast as Mr. Fantastic could make him literal Daddy Reed, if Marvel is brave enough
And when I say Daddy Pedro, I do mean that literally. If Pascal is cast as Reed Richards then he will be the oldest actor to play the part by some margin, as The Mandalorian star is currently 48. The fact that Marvel is, going by all the signs, favoring an actor of his age range for the character, then, is leaving fans convinced Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman will already be married with kids in Fantastic Four — which means their super-duper-powerful son, Franklin Richards, might just recreate his key role in Secret Wars on the big screen and their daughter, Valeria, could bring her godfather, Doctor Doom, with her.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty loses its director shortly after its writer, but move along, there’s nothing to see here
Amongst all the Fantastic Four excitement, Marvel fans are overlooking another huge bit of news that dropped. Destin Daniel Cretton has been assigned to helm Avengers: The Kang Dynasty since shortly after Shang-Chi came out in summer 2021, but now he’s exited the project — he’ll remain on as producer for Disney Plus’ Wonder Man, though. Coming as this does shortly after news arrived that writer Jeff Loveness has also left the film, and Jonathan Majors is probably being let go, that means the next Avengers movie is lacking a director, a script, and its title character. Lucky for the studio they have a full two and a half years to start again from scratch. Avengers 5 isn’t due until May 2026.
Our Fantastic Four cast may be complete but is the MCU ready for another WandaVision-sized age-gap?
Pascal is the only cast-member reliably linked to the movie to date, but renewed rumors are pointing to a potential full cast line-up. Of these, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm seems the most likely, given the Napoleon actress’ coy response to the chatter on the red carpet of her latest film. Both Pascal and Kirby are terrific performers, no doubt about that, but their joint casting would mean there’s a 13-year age difference between the MCU’s Reed and Sue. That would make them one of the franchise’s couples with the biggest age-gaps, after Scarlet Witch and Vision’s 18-year chasm.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing in itself — in fact, Stan Lee specified in the 1960s FF comics that Reed was about a decade older than Sue — but male actors being paired with much younger actresses in films is a hot-button issue these days, so Marvel might want to be careful how it treads. Does the love for Daddy Pascal stretch far enough to encompass any controversy or has the studio massively failed to Reed the room?
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I’ll get my coat.