The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Story:

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is an American superhero movie from 2025 that is based on the Fantastic Four superhero team from Marvel Comics. It is the second reboot of the Fantastic Four film series and the 37th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), produced by Marvel Studios and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer wrote the screenplay, which was directed by Matt Shakman. In addition to Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, Ralph Ineson, and the titular team of Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn, it has an ensemble cast. The movie takes place in a retro-futuristic 1960s universe that the Fantastic Four must defend from Galactus (Ineson), a cosmic entity that devours planets.

After Fantastic Four (2015) failed, 20th Century Fox started working on a new Fantastic Four movie. Marvel Studios took up the franchise after Disney bought the business in March 2019, and a new movie was revealed in July of that same year. In December 2020, Jon Watts was scheduled to direct; however, he resigned in April 2022. That September, when Kaplan and Springer were working on the script, Shakman took his place. Early in 2023, casting had started, and Friedman joined in March to revise the script.

By eschewing the team’s origin tale, the movie differs from earlier Fantastic Four movies. By mid-February 2024, when the primary cast and the title The Fantastic Four were revealed, Pearson had joined to polish the script. When filming started in July, the subtitle was inserted. Up to November 2024, it was performed on site in Spain and England as well as in Pinewood Studios in England. As the first movie in Phase Six of the MCU, The Fantastic Four: First Steps debuted at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on July 21, 2025, and was released in the US on July 25. Critics gave it mostly excellent reviews, and it made $521.9 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Fantastic Four movie and the tenth-highest-grossing movie of 2025. A follow-up is being developed.

Plot

The globe commemorates the fourth anniversary on Earth-828 in 1964 of astronauts Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm becoming the superhero group known as the Fantastic Four when they were exposed to cosmic rays on a space trip and developed superhuman abilities. Since then, Sue’s diplomacy through the Future Foundation has resulted in demilitarisation and peace for most of the world, Reed’s inventions have advanced technology, and the team has become superstars and battled supervillains. The world gets ready for the upcoming arrival and wonders if the child will have superpowers as Reed and Sue announce they are having a child.

A few months later, the Silver Surfer arrives on Earth and announces that Galactus, a cosmic entity that devours planets, has marked it for destruction. The team resolves to go back into space to prevent Galactus from reaching Earth after Reed investigates the loss of other worlds and confirms this assertion. They use faster-than-light (FTL) travel to follow the Silver Surfer’s energy signature and reach a new planet just as Galactus’s spacecraft is destroying it. After the group is apprehended and taken to Galactus, he reveals that he has been consuming worlds for aeons due to his ravenous appetite. Galactus believes that the unborn child of Reed and Sue possesses a tremendous cosmic power that may absorb his hunger and release him.

He coerces Sue into giving birth and pledges to spare Earth in return for the child. The group flees the ship after rejecting the offer. The group delays the pursuing Silver Surfer and returns to Earth by using the gravity of a neutron star, which destroys their FTL system. Franklin, a boy, is born to Sue while she is pregnant. A month later, when they return to Earth, Reed has a news conference where he shares the specifics of their experience. The public is outraged by their choice to spare one child above the billions of other people on Earth, and many demand that Franklin be sacrificed to Galactus.

Using his conversations with the Silver Surfer and some deep space signals Reed obtained from her planet, Johnny starts to understand her original tongue. Additionally, they have broadcasts from planets destroyed by Galactus. Sue brings Franklin to speak with demonstrators as Galactus approaches and anti-Fantastic Four demonstrations intensify. She clarifies that while they won’t sacrifice their child, they also won’t give up on the rest of mankind in order to win back the public’s faith. Reed plans to construct massive teleportation bridges over Earth using a teleportation technique he has been developing, allowing them to move the entire world to a another solar system that is inaccessible to Galactus.

The Silver Surfer reappears and starts demolishing the bridges as they are being activated. She is named Shalla-Bal, and she became Galactus’s herald to save her world, Zenn-La, according to what Johnny learnt from the broadcasts when he prevents her from demolishing the final bridge in Times Square. Shalla-Bal apologises after hearing messages from planets she assisted in destroying, but she declines to assist and runs away. The team intends to teleport Galactus away after luring him to the final bridge using Franklin as bait. Sue bargains with Harvey Elder to relocate the residents of New York metropolis to his underground metropolis, Subterranea. Galactus avoids the trap by moving through the city and apprehending Franklin.

While Reed saves Franklin, Sue uses all of her strength to shove him in the direction of the portal with a force field. Shalla-Bal stops Johnny from sacrificing himself to give Galactus one last shove through the portal. The portal closes behind them after she shoves Galactus through it. Sue’s efforts result in her death, but Franklin resurrects her. Later, as the world commemorates their fifth anniversary, the group embarks on a new mission. Four years later, in a scene after the credits, Sue is reading to Franklin at home when she goes to pick up another book. When she gets back, she sees him talking to a man wearing a green cloak and carrying a metal mask.