{"id":20811,"date":"2025-07-19T06:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T06:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20811\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T06:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T06:01:10","slug":"villain-role-and-avengers-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20811\/","title":{"rendered":"Villain role and Avengers ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s finally happening. The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/a> premieres next week after years spent waiting for Marvel<\/a> to finally bring the First Family to the MCU<\/a>. The red carpet premiere is set for Monday, July 21, and is being livestreamed<\/a> on Disney Plus<\/a>. The film will hit theaters next Friday, with previews playing in theaters on Wednesday and Thursday, depending on the region.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t have to wait until next week to confirm at least one big Fantastic Four spoiler, and quite possibly two of them. That\u2019s because Marvel was apparently happy with director Matt Shakman dropping a few exciting details about the movie in a wide-ranging interview about what helming Fantastic Four meant for him. Shakman worked on WandaVision before getting the Fantastic Four gig, so he is well aware of the secrecy around MCU projects.<\/p>\n

That said, I have to warn you that big spoilers might follow below, so you might want to avoid them until you see the movie.<\/p>\n

John Malkovich\u2019s villain cut\"GalactusGalactus is the villain of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Image source: Marvel<\/p>\n

Marvel fans dying to see John Malkovich in an MCU movie aren\u2019t going to be pleased about this bit of news. The beloved actor was supposed to play one of the villains in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. There were reports of his casting, and Marvel even confirmed his appearance when the Fantastic Four synopsis was released<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Rumors swirled around the villain the actor might play, with some speculating he would portray the Fantastic Four villain Red Ghost, who didn\u2019t appear in any of the previous movies. He wasn\u2019t the film\u2019s main villain, which was something we already knew back then. Galactus (Ralph Ineson) is the main threat the Fantastic Four will have to face.<\/p>\n

Shakman confirmed to Variety<\/a> that the rumors were real. Shakman cast Malkovich to play Red Ghost in a scene at the start of the movie. However, the actor was removed from the final cut. The director explained that his removal was a matter of balance:<\/p>\n

There was a lot of stuff to balance in this movie, and some things had to go. John is one of my favorite humans and one of my biggest inspirations. It was heartbreaking not to include him.<\/p>\n

The actor also confirmed he was cut from The Fantastic Four in an interview with GQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr. Fantastic to lead the Avengers?\"TheThe real title of Thunderbolts*. Image source: Marvel Studios<\/p>\n

Back to Shakman\u2019s interview \u2014 the director spoke about the casting process for The Fantastic Four, explaining how he met the film\u2019s main stars and how they started working on the film even before the script was finalized. That\u2019s where he dropped another potentially massive Fantastic Four spoiler. Shakman said that Reed Richards, played by Pedro Pascal, was the hardest role to cast for the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe goes from being the nerdy scientist who\u2019s locked away in the lab, to the husband and the father who\u2019d do anything to protect his family, to the guy who\u2019s leading the Avengers,\u201d Shakman says. \u201cI realized that the version we were building had to have all of those elements.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, Shakman casually dropped the fact that Mr. Fantastic becomes the guy who is leading the Avengers. That\u2019s an incredible surprise, as it implies Reed Richards will become the Avengers leader in Doomsday and Secret Wars.<\/p>\n

However, Shakman was likely talking in general about this particular character who is so important for Marvel comics. I\u2019m speculating here, but it\u2019s too early to tell whether Reed will be one of the leaders of the Avengers in the upcoming crossover.<\/p>\n

\u2028It\u2019s obvious that Marvel needs to have The Fantastic Four out before the upcoming Avengers movies. I will remind you that The New Avengers, aka Thunderbolts*, ends with a Fantastic Four-related credits scene<\/a>. Their ship appears in the main MCU universe, likely establishing a tie between The Fantastic Four and the rest of the MCU.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, one of the biggest Fantastic Four spoilers that Marvel gave us was confirmation that the reboot takes place in a different reality than the MCU\u2019s main universe. It\u2019s easy to then speculate that the Fantastic Four would somehow end up joining the MCU\u2019s Avengers to fight Robert Downey Jr.\u2019s Doctor Doom. But that\u2019s not to say that Pedro Pascal will immediately play the leader of the Avengers. With The Fantastic Four release date set for Monday, spoilers will continue to leak out next week, which might help to clarify Shakman\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s finally happening. The Fantastic Four: First Steps premieres next week after years spent waiting for Marvel to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,18832,12761,18833,206],"class_list":["post-20811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-fantastic-four","tag-marvel","tag-mcu","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}