During Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at the recent San Diego Comic-Con, Kevin Feige announced a release date for the MCU’s highly anticipated Fantastic Four reboot. The movie is set to hit theaters on November 8, 2024, as a part of Phase Six. Despite being a little over two years away, the new Fantastic Four movie has yet to secure a director. Jon Watts, the filmmaker behind the MCU’s critically acclaimed Spider-Man trilogy, was originally lined up to direct the movie. But after being burned out by a decade of tight deadlines and VFX-heavy storytelling, Watts dropped out of directing Fantastic Four to take a break from big-budget superhero movies and focus on smaller, more personal projects.
So, the director’s chair is vacant and Feige has yet to choose somebody to fill it. There are a bunch of filmmakers working today who’d do a great job of bringing Marvel’s first family into the MCU with the heart, humor, passion, and ingenuity that they deserve. Some of these candidates are already on the studio’s payroll, like James Gunn and Peyton Reed, while others have never made a comic book movie, like Steven Spielberg and Greta Gerwig. But arguably the best choice for the job would be Brad Bird.
Bird already directed the best Fantastic Four movie ever made. The Incredibles might not be an official Fantastic Four movie, but it captured the comic book’s colorful characters, sly self-awareness, and heartwarming focus on family a lot better than any of the official adaptations. The tone of The Incredibles is exactly the tone that a Fantastic Four movie should have: a big, fun, lively superhero adventure with a lot of humor but also a lot of emotion and sincerity.
Brad Bird Already Made A Masterpiece About A Family Of Superheroes
As an apprentice of Disney’s “Nine Old Men” collective, Bird got his start in animation. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, he worked for Steven Spielberg and The Simpsons before making his feature directorial debut with 1999’s The Iron Giant. In the 2000s, Bird moved to Pixar and developed such computer-animated masterpieces as Ratatouille. He made his live-action debut with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which turned the M:I series from a middling action movie franchise into a string of must-see blockbuster extravaganzas. The breathtaking Burj Khalifa sequence, in which IMF operative Ethan Hunt scales the facade of the tallest skyscraper on Earth, started Tom Cruise on the reckless path to one-up himself with the jaw-dropping practical stunt work in every subsequent Mission: Impossible adventure. Clearly, Bird can handle big action set-pieces.
Bird has been involved in many great movies over the course of his impressive career, but the shiniest, prettiest jewel in his crown – and the one that proves he should be hired for Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four revamp – is The Incredibles. Set in a Watchmen-style world in which superheroics have been outlawed and masked crimefighters have been forced into hiding, The Incredibles satirizes and deconstructs the conventions of superhero narratives while still providing audiences with all the explosive superhero action they could ask for. It has both thrilling set-pieces, like Mr. Incredible’s standoff with the Omnidroid and Dash and Violet taking Syndrome’s henchmen on a wild goose chase through the jungle, and quieter character moments, like Bob and Helen arguing about which route to take to avoid traffic on the way to the final battle.
The Incredibles Has The Perfect Tone For A Fantastic Four Movie
Above all, Fantastic Four is a story about family. Sue and Johnny are the only two who are actually related, but Reed and Ben grew up together and are practically brothers, and Reed and Sue end up getting married and having kids. Like the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Fantastic Four is a family affair. Bird nailed the family dynamics of the Parrs in The Incredibles, from Bob and Helen’s marital struggles to Dash’s rebelliousness to Violet’s teen angst. In the Incredibles movies, the characters come first and the action scenes are the gravy on top.
It’s unlikely that the MCU’s Fantastic Four movie will take place in their heyday of the 1960s; it’ll probably be set in the present day to allow the characters to cross over into other Marvel Studios projects. But, whether it takes place in the ‘60s or not, it should have a ‘60s feel, and that’s what Bird achieved so beautifully with the retro visual style of The Incredibles. The whole movie feels like a throwback to classic superhero comics.
The Incredibles Takes Its Characters Seriously
For the most part, The Incredibles is a light, breezy, family-friendly action-adventure. But it knows when to take itself seriously. There’s a harrowing sense of gravitas when Mr. Incredible stumbles upon a database confirming that all his old superhero friends have been killed. When he thinks his wife and kids have died in a plane crash, it’s heartbreaking. When he learns that they’re actually alive and reunites with Helen, it’s equally heartwarming. In Bird’s hands, the Fantastic Four reboot wouldn’t have any of the MCU’s usual bathos to undercut its dramatic moments. Bird would give the dramatic moments room to breathe, allowing these iconic blue-clad characters to develop tangible emotional connections with one another, much like he did in The Incredibles.
From Olivia Wilde to Matthew Vaughn, there are many directors who would do a great job of balancing the comedy, earnestness, and escapist entertainment that a Fantastic Four movie needs. But Brad Bird is the only candidate who has already definitively proven that he can bring spectacle and sentimentality to a heartwarming story about a family of four superheroes.