Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot release won’t arrive until late 2023 or beyond

© Image: Marvel Studios

After announcing the film in December 2020 at a Disney Investors’ Call, Marvel Studios has remained mostly mum about plans for its big-screen reboot of Fantastic Four. Of course, Marvel fans have not forgotten: Rumors that Reed Richards would pop up in WandaVision ran so rampant during the Disney Plus show’s run that director Matt Shakman later apologized to fans.

Now, in a batch of new Marvel release date updates, the studio has once again hyped its reimagining of comics’ “First Family” for hungry Marvel audiences. In an announcement video, Marvel teased that Fantastic Four would arrive after Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, which hits on May 5, 2023. That would leave the fall of 2023 wide open for the movie — or sometime in 202 … 4?

Fantastic Four will be directed by Jon Watts, who is the rare filmmaker to helm three movies in the MCU: Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far from Home, and the No Way Home, due out on Dec. 17, 2021. Keeping Watts in-house makes sense: Kevin Feige has had to share the skilled blockbuster director with Sony thanks to the (near-disastrous) pact made to produce the Spidey trilogy. Now Watts will make films for Marvel Studios proper, and with several installments already under his belt. That experience could lend this version of the film what it needs to take root in the zeitgeist; Fox’s first attempt at bringing the superhero family to the big screens fizzled out after the sequel, 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Slightly more infamously, Fox and director Josh Trank butted heads over the direction of the studio’s 2015 Fantastic Four reboot, resulting in one of the most derided superhero movies of the last decade.

For more on the current MCU schedule, head to our full breakdown of Marvel movie release dates.