UPDATE: ‘Fantastic Four’ — Matt Shakman in Talks to Direct, Leaves ‘Star Trek 4’
WandaVision director Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot at Marvel Studios.
The news was first reported by The Direct after rumors were circulating for a couple of days on social media, and now The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Shakman, prolific television director from The Boys and Game of Thrones, is no stranger to the Marvel family, after he directed all nine episodes of WandaVision, which is to date the most critically acclaimed of all the Disney Plus series from Marvel. It earned 25 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series and Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series.
Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts had originally been announced to be helming the reboot for Marvel Studios before he departed earlier this year to focus on his work over at Lucasfilm with the upcoming Star Wars: Skeleton Crew series. The studio quickly launched a full-scale search for the director of one of their biggest priorities, with reports suggesting that Feige was looking for a big-name director he could trust with the movie and not be as involved as he usually is. Rumors of Marvel contacting Steven Spielberg even began circulating earlier this summer, though nothing came of it.
Shakman is not exactly their new Sam Raimi yet, but he directed by far the best episode of Game of Thrones season 7 in Spoils of War, and obviously did a very good job with WandaVision last year. An official announcement could come from the studio during their D23 presentation on September 10. It’s unknown whether the cast will be announced as well, or even if the process has started. As of today, we don’t even know who is writing the movie.
Fantastic Four is currently targeting a November 8, 2024, release date.
UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter is (unsurprisingly) reporting that Shakman has indeed left Star Trek 4, currently slated for a December 22, 2023, release date (which is very likely not meeting). Paramount Pictures released the following statement:
“Matt Shakman is an incredibly talented filmmaker, and we regret the timing didn’t align for him to direct our upcoming Star Trek film… We are grateful for his many contributions, are excited about the creative vision of this next chapter and look forward to bringing it to audiences all around world.”
One project shooting soon which he’s still attached to — as director of the first two episodes — is Legendary and Apple’s upcoming MonsterVerse TV series, starring Kurt and Wyatt Russell. Given it’s a smaller, less time-consuming job, we’re not expecting Shakman to depart that project, especially considering Fantastic Four will need more writing and pre-production time before it can start shooting (probably) in the second half of 2023.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
