A new writer has joined the production crew of Marvel Studios' upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, bringing with him some varied experience.As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter on Twitter, Josh Friedman has succeeded previous writers Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer to pen the script for the eponymous team's Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Prior to joining the MCU, Friedman was one of the writers for Avatar: The Way of Water and helped franchise creator James Cameron work out the details in the latter's plans for the movie. He is also the creator of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and has worked on the TV shows Snowpiercer and Foundation.
The Fantastic Four Enter the MCU at Last
The Fantastic Four reboot will be directed by Matt Shakman, who had previously helmed Disney+'s WandaVision and will return for the spinoff Vision Quest. Regarding his involvement with the movie, Shakman explained why he chose Fantastic Four over Star Trek 4, saying that he loves the latter franchise and it would have been an "unbelievable pleasure" to work with J.J. Abrams and Paramount Pictures on Star Trek, but that "movies have different journeys and momentums 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," he concluded.
The Fantastic Four might not be the only new MCU characters Shakman will tackle in the future, as a recent rumor claims that he is also involved with a Silver Surfer TV series that's being worked on at Disney+. However, neither Shakman nor Marvel Studios has confirmed this, so fans of the Sentinel of the Spaceways should take this with a grain of salt. It was previously claimed that the character would get a Disney+ special that would be released before the Fantastic Four's movie, though this was similarly unconfirmed.
As for the film itself, while details about its plot have yet to be made publicly available, Marvel Studios President/CCO Kevin Feige teased in 2022 that it won't retell the FF's origin story. "A lot of people know this origin story," Feige commented at the time. "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."
Fantastic Four is currently set to arrive in theaters on Feb. 14, 2025.
Source: Twitter