A new author revised the MCU’s Fantastic Four movie script.
The Fantastic Four by Matt Shakman film will be released in 2025, the same year as Marvel Studios unveils Marvel’s First Family.
The MCU creates what has been called an “optimistic” sci-fi epic, but very little is known about the potential cast for this future comic book film.
According to reports, the movie will “surprise” viewers as production progresses.
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Marvel Studios’ New Fantastic Four Script
Avatar 2 writer Josh Friedman was reportedly engaged to rewrite the Fantastic Four script for Marvel Studios, which would indicate a change in the movie’s tone.
Friedman joined the project after the writing team of Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer was first chosen to write the Marvel script, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Friedman worked on Avatar: The Way of Water and TNT’s Snowpiercer series, thus this probably signals a shift in the MCU epic’s tone away from Kaplan and Springer’s lighter fare (Disaster Wedding and K-Pop: Lost in America) and toward Friedman’s primarily tragic body of work.
Friedman has experience in the Avatar universe and has worked on the Tom Cruise-starring War of the Worlds and Terminator series, among other major sci-fi storytelling projects (The Sarah Conner Chronicles and Dark Fate).
The Importance of Josh Friedman for the Fantastic Four
Josh Friedman’s employment is significant for the future of the Fantastic Four and the MCU.
The departure of Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer suggests that Marvel is reworking the movie to be something else from what it was first planned to be.
Marvel Studios is aware that this film must be successful. Bringing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is almost as significant as bringing in the Avengers or the X-Men.
If their prior work is any indication, what Kaplan and Springer were creating for Marvel Studios was likely lighter in tone and prioritized humor. That is not how Friedman will interpret the movie.
The big sci-fi story in Friedman’s Fantastic Four is expected to feature some funny moments, but humor won’t be the main focus of this particular blockbuster.
Why Marvel would make this decision is unknown, although it might have something to do with the lackluster reception to several previous titles that flaunted their sense of humor in apparent ways (Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania).
The Fantastic Four can be amusing, but they blend even better into the compelling science-fiction environment. The hiring of Friedman is a surprise development in the plot of this film, but it could turn out to be advantageous in the long term.
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