In the wake of last weekend’s Comic-Con panel, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has been giving interviews offering some post-announcement brief updates on projects.
One such chat session was with THR the other day where I touched upon a few titles including the new “Fantastic Four”. The studio is actively hunting for a director in the wake of Jon Watts’ exit and one who can have the film ready in time for its November 2024 release.
One thing Feige can confirm, like with Spider-Man being brought into the MCU, is that the F4 film will be skipping an origin story:
“A lot of people know this origin story. A lot of people know the basics. How do we take that and bring something that they’ve never seen before? We’ve set a very high bar for ourselves with bringing that to the screen.”
For a while now, there’s been pressure on Marvel to disclose an overarching goal for its current ‘Phase 4’ as the various works since “Avengers: Endgame” have seemed somewhat standalone.
That’s changed somewhat with Feige’s announcements last week of the fifth phase and some of the sixth phase, and Feige says the current fourth phase has all been “about resetting the MCU and meeting all these new characters.”
One film not discussed last weekend was “Deadpool 3,” and Feige says to look at the MCU’s track record for third films to get an idea of what they’re going for:
“How do we elevate it in the way we’ve been able to with Civil War, Infinity War and Ragnarok? It’s very fun to be in the world of the Ryan Reynolds show.”
More Marvel stuff is expected to be shown off at the D23 convention from September 9th-11th, with that more likely to focus on the Disney+ series side of things. The studio’s ceaseless output is also continuing to be subjected to criticism by VFX artists, such as in a piece for Vulture.
Marvel is currently filming the second season of “Loki,” doing additional photography for both “The Marvels” and “Secret Invasion,” and is prepping the “Blade” shoot in Atlanta in October along with gearing up for the release of “Black Panther : Wakanda Forever” in November.