The Fantastic Four: First Steps Cast Tease Marvel’s First Family

The Fantastic Four are taking their first steps into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, along with director Matt Shakman, stepped out onstage at Marvel Studios’ San Diego Comic-Con 2024 panel to preview the newly-retitled The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which brings the Fab Four — Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Susan Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/the Thing — into the MCU in a “retro-future” version of 1960s New York City. 

After Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige personally introduced Marvel’s First Family “for the first time all in public,” the cast teased the four’s familial dynamic. Pascal praised his “new family,” with Quinn adding: “We’re all collectively going to bring an essence that is a familyrather than thinking about what we individually are going to bring.”

Speaking to Marvel Entertainment post-panel, the cast detailed their family-first approach to the reboot that officially begins production this week in London.

“I love these characters, and I think we found four amazing actors to bring them to life,” Shakman said. “They’ve already bonded like a family. It’s very, very sweet and exciting, and that’s a tricky thing.”

Praising Kirby as an “inspiration,” Pascal told Kirby: “Nobody works harder, and you are my leader. It’s the truth.” Five months since their first meeting, Pascal and Kirby found common ground in rooting the romance between power couple Reed Richards and Sue Storm as the heart of First Steps. “I relate to the love that they have for one another. Everything kind of grows from that relationship,” Pascal said. “I’m a huge co-dependent.”

“For me, I love the fact that they were humans that went through something really extreme,” Kirby added of the four’s origin story (which won’t be retold in First Steps). “To read all the comics and see their journey, their relationship, it’s always about how they’re so inextricably linked and they can just never separate. They go through a lot of hard times, as well, which I really loved getting to know that.”

Quinn,who plays the hot-headed Johnny, said of playing Susan’s younger sibling: “He’s the youngest of the group, and probably the most foolish of the group. I guess I can relate to that, slightly.” When Quinn put Moss-Bachrach on the hot seat to share what he has in common with the blue-eyed, ever-lovin’ Thing, he answered: “Bashful Ben Grimm? Right now I feel a little shy.”

“We’ve been going through scenes and working at stuff, and working at a table, and sort of getting into it,” Moss-Bachrach added. “[We’ve been] developing our relationships, just kind of very basic connecting and figuring out what this family is about, what the dynamics are of the family. Just sort of straight-forward character work.”

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps — starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Mass-Bachrach, John Malkovich, Paul Walter Hauser, Natasha Lyonne, Julia Garner as the Shalla-Bal Silver Surfer and Ralph Ineson as Galactus — opens only in theaters July 25th, 2025, as part of the MCU Phase 6.