While he’s already in “Star Wars” in Lucasfilm’s “The Mandalorian” and leads HBO’s “The Last Of Us,” Chilean actor Pedro Pascal is not done taking on prominent franchise roles. The actor is reportedly in talks to join Marvel’s “Fantastic Four” as the lead character Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic.
Deadline reports the news but cautions that Pascal, a three-time Emmy nominee, is still in talks, and no deal has been signed yet. Following “The Avengers” and the “X-Men,” “Fantastic Four,” known as Marvel’s first family, is arguably the next biggest flagship team brand.
Since Disney bought 20th Century Fox in 2017, fans have asked for a new MCU version of the “Fantastic Four.” There have been three previous iterations under Fox, and all of them underwhelmed fans, critics, and the box office, especially 2015’s “Fantastic Four” by director Josh Trank, which was seen as a colossal superhero dud at the time.
In the comics, Richards is known as one of the smartest men alive on Earth, a brainy scientist with a brain capacity even beyond Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and possibly Wakandan technology. Richards gains stretchy powers in the space accident he is in that gives all the Fantastic Four their powers. The rest of the team includes his wife, Sue Storm, The Invisible Girl, Ben Grimm as The Thing, and Johnny Storm as The Human Torch.
Rumors for Reed Richards have gone around for months, and it seems pretty clear that actors like Diego Luna and Adam Driver (and potentially Matt Smith) were offered but passed on the role. In a quick fan-casting move to please fans, a multiverse version of Reed Richards, played by John Krasinski, was briefly seen in 2019’s “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness.”
Richards is traditionally a Caucasian character, and allowing a South American actor to play him signals that Marvel isn’t afraid to go with somewhat atypical casting. Matt Shakman, the director of Marvel’s “WandaVision” series, is directing “Fantastic Four,” and the hope is the film can go into production in early 2024.
We spoke to Shakman recently, he’s the director of “Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters” Apple series, and while he could not tell us much, he did tease that Marvel was hoping to announce the cast as soon as the strikes were over (any conversations, talks or offers that were in the works had to be halted because of the strikes).
According to Deadline, getting the cast in shape meant figuring out who would play Richards first, so chemistry tests may be next, and they’ll likely choose actors who play well with Pascal—if he indeed takes the role, but it sounds like he will. Scheduling will have to be worked out as Pascal is also set to shoot “The Last Of Us” season two, and that series is expected to last at least three or four seasons, which could complicate things for the actor and the studio.
It should be noted, while not confirmed, the leading frontrunner rumors of the rest of the cast include Vanessa Kirby (“Mission Impossible: Fallout”) for Sue Storm, “The Bear” star Ebon Moss-Bachrach for The Thing, Joseph Quinn (“Stranger Things”) for Johnny Storm and possibly even Javier Bardem for the big bad villain Galactus, but hey, who knows, scheduling could be an issue for lots of these actors.
“Fantastic Four” is already set for a big, leading tentpole date of May 2, 2025. The team is expected to be a big part of Marvel’s future, along with the “X-Men” and The Fantastic Four will undoubtedly factor into “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.”
