Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts steps back from Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four movie, and the search for a new director begins.
Likely to be one of the biggest movies on the upcoming Marvel slate, outside of the bevy of sequels the studio is putting together, is the latest big screen outing for Fantastic Four. The first family of Marvel comic books has been off the big screen since the mid-2010s, when the last reboot didn’t exactly go to plan.
One of the consequences of Disney’s acquisition of Fox and its film assets a few years’ back – outside of the loss of thousands of jobs around the world – was that Marvel Studios got the rights to Fantastic Four movies back. And it duly set Jon Watts as the director of the new movie, once he’d wrapped up on his Spider-Man trilogy with Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Well, Watts has indeed wrapped up his webslinging duties, and in turn, he’s now quit the Fantastic Four movie. He’s told the studio that he “needs a break from the superhero realm”, and basically is looking to take something of a break. Marvel, meanwhile, is looking to keep the project moving forward.
As Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige said in a statement, “Collaborating with Jon on the Spider-Man films has been a true pleasure. We were looking forward to continuing our work with him to bring the Fantastic Four into the MCU but understand and are supportive of his reasons for stepping away. We are optimistic that we will have the opportunity to work together again at some point down the road”.
Expect news on a new director in due course. We hear Justin Lin is suddenly available…
Deadline
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