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THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS is a '60s Space-Race Movie Shot "The Way Kubrick Would Have Made It"
In just a few months, Marvel’s First Family finally makes its MCU debut, but they’re not arriving in the world we know. The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes us to a whole new corner of the multiverse, one shaped by the space-age dreams of the 1960s. It’s retro. It’s cool. And it’s unlike anything Marvel has done before. With it be 4/4, Marvel has shared a new poster and a couple of new photos.Director Matt Shakman, who previously brought his retro sensibilities to WandaVision, is channeling the hopeful spirit of mid-century America, a time when space was the final frontier and astronauts were national heroes. Shakman said to Empire: “This is very much about the spirit of the Space Race. It's about JFK and optimism. It’s imagining these four going into space instead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. “This idea is that they are the most famous people in America, because they’re adventurers, explorers, astronauts — not because they're superheroes. And they come back and they're superheroes on top of it. But primarily they're astronauts, they're family.”Before they’re the Fantastic Four, they’re explorers: Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn). Shakman wanted to ground their story in a retro-futuristic reality that could’ve come out of a dusty sci-fi pulp or an old NASA archive. “I really wanted to go with as grounded a version of space as possible,” he explains. “So, no wormholes. Their tech is very much retro-future, but it's also booster rockets. It’s a combination of Marvel and Apollo 11.”Shakman leaned into practical filmmaking while making the film, saying: “I really wanted it to feel like it was made in 1965, the way Stanley Kubrick would have made it. Within reason.” That meant building actual sets, using a massive 14-foot spaceship miniature, and shooting through old-school lenses. “We’ve used old lenses, and taken an approach to filmmaking that feels more of the time. Of course, we still have a lot of CG.”This a whole new style and world for Marvel. One with no Avengers, no crossovers. Shankman said: “We are our own universe, which is wonderful and liberating. There's really no [other] superheroes. There's no Easter eggs. There's no running into Iron Man or whatever. They're it, in this universe. “I love the interconnected Marvel Universe, but we get to do something so new and so different. Eventually this world will meet up with other worlds — but for now this is our own little corner.”We already know they’re set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday. But First Steps is about taking the MCU somewhere it’s never gone before, into a version of the past that feels freshly imagined and awesomely cinematic. View fullsize
In just a few months, Marvel’s First Family finally makes its MCU debut, but they’re not arriving in the world we know.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes us to a whole new corner of the multiverse, one shaped by the space-age dreams of the 1960s. It’s retro. It’s cool. And it’s unlike anything Marvel has done before. With it be 4/4, Marvel has shared a new poster and a couple of new photos.
Director Matt Shakman, who previously brought his retro sensibilities to WandaVision, is channeling the hopeful spirit of mid-century America, a time when space was the final frontier and astronauts were national heroes.
Shakman said to Empire: “This is very much about the spirit of the Space Race. It's about JFK and optimism. It’s imagining these four going into space instead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
“This idea is that they are the most famous people in America, because they’re adventurers, explorers, astronauts — not because they're superheroes. And they come back and they're superheroes on top of it. But primarily they're astronauts, they're family.”
Before they’re the Fantastic Four, they’re explorers: Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn). Shakman wanted to ground their story in a retro-futuristic reality that could’ve come out of a dusty sci-fi pulp or an old NASA archive.
“I really wanted to go with as grounded a version of space as possible,” he explains. “So, no wormholes. Their tech is very much retro-future, but it's also booster rockets. It’s a combination of Marvel and Apollo 11.”
Shakman leaned into practical filmmaking while making the film, saying: “I really wanted it to feel like it was made in 1965, the way Stanley Kubrick would have made it. Within reason.”
That meant building actual sets, using a massive 14-foot spaceship miniature, and shooting through old-school lenses. “We’ve used old lenses, and taken an approach to filmmaking that feels more of the time. Of course, we still have a lot of CG.”
This a whole new style and world for Marvel. One with no Avengers, no crossovers. Shankman said: “We are our own universe, which is wonderful and liberating. There's really no [other] superheroes. There's no Easter eggs. There's no running into Iron Man or whatever. They're it, in this universe.
“I love the interconnected Marvel Universe, but we get to do something so new and so different. Eventually this world will meet up with other worlds — but for now this is our own little corner.”
We already know they’re set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday. But First Steps is about taking the MCU somewhere it’s never gone before, into a version of the past that feels freshly imagined and awesomely cinematic.
