Stranger Things Star Missed Out On A Marvel Role Before Landing Another One

Game ZXC

Fantastic Four

Highlights

The Fantastic Four film is finally coming to the MCU with a new cast including Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm.
Fans are excited for the debut of the first family in the interconnected universe after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox.
Quinn missed out on his dream role of Spider-Man but is thrilled to be the Human Torch in the upcoming film.

With the casting of the upcoming Fantastic Four film finally rolling out, fans are harkening back to one of the newly cast stars’ comments on joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the first family’s impending debut looms closer.

The Fantastic Four has been a longtime headline of Marvel Comics and was unfortunately outside of the purview of Marvel Studios at its inception, with the rights to the iconic characters instead being in the hands of 20th Century Fox. This status denied the team a place at the start of the MCU in a similar vein to equally popular heroes in the X-Men and Spider-Man. However, with the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney, Marvel’s first family would be set to join the interconnected universe, with fans hoping that the MCU’s Fantastic Four would take inspiration from family dramas to capture some of the dynamics the team shared in the comics.

Deadpool & Wolverine Could Highlight Marvel's Worst Tendencies

Deadpool & Wolverine must stay true to its origins, in order to avoid Marvel's worst aspects.

While Deadpool & Wolverine is the only theatrical MCU release for 2024, The Fantastic Four’s 2025 release date led to a reveal of the main cast for the film, including British star Joseph Quinn of Stranger Things fame in the role of Johnny Storm alongside Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm. Quinn’s inclusion in the casting fulfills the star’s long-held wish to join the MCU, albeit not in the role he expected. As reported by Comicbook, Quinn has previously made his dream MCU role known to fans a while back, and it’s none other than everyone’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, an enduring fan-favorite and a dream role for many comic book fans, casual and hardcore alike. Fittingly, Spidey, who has on occasion been a member of the Fantastic Four, is also canonically friends with Quinn’s character Storm.

In the interview with Buzzfeed, where the comments were originally made, Quinn revealed that he’d originally auditioned for the role of Spider-Man during the casting rounds following Andrew Garfield’s two-film run, which would eventually see Tom Holland take on the role for the highly successful Spiderman: Home trilogy. While Quinn might have missed out on the role, there’s no doubt that Holland was the right choice for the role, as his trilogy of films set records and has even seen him conditionally return. for a fourth Spider-Man film. Meanwhile, Quinn speaks with excitement about his new role as the Human Torch. "It's mad. I'm really excited! I still can't believe it. We have a great gang," he said earlier in the month. "When I spoke to Matt, the director, he had a brilliant vision for this, and the gang that we have, it was an easy decision. I definitely wanted to be a part of it."

Quinn seems as good a choice as any for the role of Johnny Storm, a role that has previously been played by fellow MCU stars Micheal B. Jordan and Chris Evans, who insists he’d rather be Johnny Storm again than Captain America. However, it’s fair to say that the lineup of stars doesn’t exactly neatly fit into what fans were expecting for the hero team, and this might have everything to do with the film’s aura and direction, which fans are not yet entirely clear on. Signs seem to point to the team starting off their MCU journey in an alterate universe or the other, leaving a lot of room for characterization that deviates from the established versions of the characters in the comics. Fortunately for Marvel Studios, the last attempt at a reboot crashed and burned, while the duo of films that preceded it weren’t taken seriously by audiences. As such, there isn’t really a popular consensus amongst casual fans on what to expect.

While it was not the worst non-MCU Marvel movie from the 2000s, the 2005 film and its 2007 sequel left a lot to be desired, all of which this new MCU version can set right as it draws on the studio’s extensive knowledge of the superhero film genre. While it may have its flaws, the modern MCU has managed to be taken seriously in a way that these other films were never able to accomplish.

The Fantastic Four is currently set to premiere theatrically on July 25, 2025.