Yes, we’re all seeing those “Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic” rumors, too

Pedro PascalPhoto: Jon Kopaloff (Getty Images)

Can we start this with a question, one intended with no disrespect to Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, or, god help us, Ioan Gruffudd, Miles Teller, or poor, cameo-trapped John Krasinski?

Francis Lawrence on “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” Olivia Rodrigo, and more

Do any of us actually give a shit who plays Mr. Fantastic?

We’re just saying: The amount of speculation that has now been spilled about the casting fate of the character you got stuck playing as on the playground after the rock man, the fire guy, and the woman who can make forcefields explode in your brain were already picked has gotten at least mildly unfathomable at this point. Now self-appointed “cool slutty daddy”—his words! Don’t yell at us!—Pedro Pascal has been sucked into the rumor mill, too, with Deadline reporting that the Last Of Us star and genre stalwart is supposedly in talks with Marvel for taking a shot at the role of stretchy super-scientist Reed Richards.

If true, that’s mostly interesting for what it says about where Marvel intends to take the Fantastic Four movie, which is currently scheduled for May 2, 2025. Pascal is, after all, 48 at the moment, and would be 50 when the movie comes out—so at the very least it suggests that the movie won’t be a straight origin story pegged to the quartet’s younger years. (Which, fair enough: We’ve already got two of those, neither great, so the idea has probably run its course.) Deadline quotes a bunch of anonymous sources that say “scheduling is still being worked out”—Pascal’s crazy-busy right now, between The Last Of Us, Gladiator 2, and more—but that negotiations are “headed in the right direction.” And, hey, the internet seems to like it well enough (which, we suspect is at least half the reason stories like this leak, as a sort of free, informal dose of focus testing), even if a lot of people are suggesting Pascal might be better in an antagonist role as Doctor Doom. In any case, Pascal’s an interesting-enough actor that he’d find something fun to do with the part, which, you could argue, has never really been nailed on film. So, yeah: Put it on the vision board, “Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic.” We’ve seen worse.