Familiar MCU Producers Join 'Fantastic Four' Team
What does it take to make an MCU blockbuster? We’re all familiar with the final product that hits theatres and blows our collective minds. We know the actors and we know the directors, but who brings them all together? Someone has to assemble all these metaphorical (and sometimes literal) Avenger-like teams and make sure the wheels don’t fall off. Thanks to an interview Moon Knight writer Jeremey Slater recently did with ComicBook.com, we now know the duo responsible for gathering the cast and crew for the upcoming, and very much anticipated, Fantastic Four film will be Grant Curtis and Nick Pepin.
This recent reveal is big news in the Marvel Universe for a couple reasons, number one being the aforementioned anticipation. The Fantastic Four are often referred to as the “first family of Marvel” and for much of the MCU’s infancy, fans were unsure if we would ever see the fearsome foursome join the fray. But when Disney’s acquisition of Fox was made official, our collective hope grew. Then Kevin Feige simultaneously put us at ease and sent us into a frenzy with confirmation back in December 2020. Information on the project has been scarce since, though we do know Jon Watts will no longer be directing. Due to the lack of insight or even a ballpark release date, the development of Grant Curtis and Nick Pepin being brought in to produce is plenty for Marvel fans to chew on for the time being.
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Another interesting aspect of this news is that in a way, we might be able to infer what type of Fantastic Four film we may be in for based on their prior work. In addition, it opens the door to the question; can they be trusted with this tremendous task? We just went over how big this introduction is for the MCU, so it needs to make a splash. These are characters that could set up another decade of stories for the world to enjoy. Are Curtis and Pepin up to the challenge of delivering audiences that impactful a movie? I say they are. Most recently the duo gave Marvel fans one of the best Disney+ series to date in Moon Knight. From start to finish Moon Knight was a refreshing and thrilling add-on to the MCU and rightfully earned the two the honor of handling Fantastic Four. If you need further convincing, simply look at their resumes. Curtis also served as producer for Sami Rami’s Spider-Man trilogy. Despite what criticisms the third film may garner, it’s undeniable that he helped put together a Spider-Man film that defined a generation of kids and will for a long, long time. As for Pepin, you could call him an MCU specialist at this point in his career. Along with his work as production manager on Moon Knight, Pepin has been a production assistant on nine Marvel films and has been part of the production team for seven other assorted film and TV projects.
A final reason to feel confident in Curtis and Pepin is that they’re not afraid to take risks when gathering their team. A perfect example of this is Moon Knight writer Jeremy Slater. For those that don’t know, Moon Knight was Slater’s first MCU project, but not his first Marvel-affiliated work. Previously he was the writer for Josh Trank’s widely critiqued Fantastic Four in 2015. Although Slater claims this was due to the lack of his writing that made the final cut, he doesn’t take much responsibility for the film, he himself acknowledges he will never truly escape the blame. With this “black mark” on Slater’s record, it was risky to choose him for Moon Knight, but I think the majority of Marvel fans would say he more than delivered. In the end, this is all just a long-winded way of saying, I think Fantastic Four is in good hands.
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Source(s): IMDb [1], [2], ComicBook.com