In response to the lukewarm reception of recent superhero movies, Marvel returns to its first family: the Fantastic Four

“Superhero films are dead!” That’s the tired cry we’ve heard from critics for years now, so often, in fact, that it’s become meaningless.

Despite the headlines, superhero movies are still pulling in hundreds of millions at the global box office and remain the centrepiece of studio tentpoles. Just look at the MCU’s latest entry, Thunderbolts. It grossed $400 million on a $200 million budget and was still considered a disappointment and marked down as a flop. For most studios, that would be a massive hit, a franchise starter and a career-defining win. For Marvel, it’s just Tuesday.

No, superhero films aren’t dead. But fatigue? Superhero indifference? That’s very real.

Since the colossal success of Avengers: Endgame in 2019 – the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time with nearly $2.8 billion in global receipts – the genre has seen diminishing returns. While there have been occasional spikes, the overall trajectory has been downward. Audiences are growing weary of repetitive plotlines, formulaic structures and dialogue that often feels copied and pasted from earlier scripts. Add to that the rumour that Disney execs put pressure on Marvel to focus on quantity over quality in recent years, and it’s no wonder enthusiasm has waned.

Then there are the narrative missteps. The Multiverse Saga, which followed Endgame, never quite resonated with general audiences. The storyline felt disjointed, and its central villain, Kang the Conqueror, was scrapped after legal issues involving actor Jonathan Majors.

But change is coming.

In response to the lukewarm reception of Phases 4 through 6, Marvel is plotting a soft reboot, and it begins with the return of its first family: the Fantastic Four. Long overdue for a proper introduction into the MCU, the Fantastic Four will headline Fantastic Four: First Steps, a film poised to either reinvigorate the franchise or accelerate its decline. Marvel knows the stakes, and they’re betting big.

The casting is star-studded: Vanessa Kirby (Mission Impossible) as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Ebon Moss‑Bachrach (The Bear) as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and global fan-favourite Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic. The movie will take place in an alternate retro-futuristic 1960s reality, visually distinct from the modern-day MCU, and skip the origin story entirely. When the film begins, the team will already be established heroes, called upon to stop a cosmic threat: Galactus, the world devourer.

Fans already caught a glimpse of their arrival in the main MCU timeline via a post-credits scene in Thunderbolts, where a mysterious SOS comes from a stranded spaceship: our heroes, presumably, trying to escape their crumbling world.

Here’s a juicy detail for comic book fans: in the trailer, Sue Storm appears to be pregnant, and in one scene, is shown in bed with a baby. That baby is almost certainly Franklin Richards, one of the most powerful mutants in Marvel Comics canon, capable of warping reality itself. In the 2015 comic book “Secret Wars” storyline, Franklin – alongside his father – reshapes entire universes and helps launch a soft reboot of the Marvel Comics universe. It looks like the MCU is setting up to do something similar.

And that’s not all. Disney has already confirmed that the next two Avengers films will conclude the Multiverse Saga. Avengers: Doomsday is set to release on December 18, 2026, featuring the long-awaited return of Robert Downey Jr this time not as Iron Man, but as Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four’s archenemy. One year later, on December 17, 2027, Avengers: Secret Wars will wrap up this massive arc, echoing the 2015 comic run of the same name.

By introducing the Fantastic Four, ending the Multiverse Saga and bringing in Franklin Richards, Kevin Feige is going for a soft-reboot of the MCU that will allow him and his creative team to re-introduce some heroes and scrap previous mistakes and misfires. Looking at you Eternals. 

The introduction of Franklin Richards also opens the door for the long-anticipated arrival of the X-Men, with mutants finally able to take centre stage in the MCU. That alone gives Marvel a fresh decade’s worth of stories, characters, and crossovers, TV shows and tie-ins not included. Translation: money.

But everything rides on Fantastic Four: First Steps. If the film resonates – if it can capture that old Marvel magic and cross the billion-dollar threshold – the industry will breathe a sigh of relief, and headlines will proclaim the triumphant return of the superhero film.

So no, superhero movies aren’t dead. They’re not even dying. They’ve just been resting – eyes closed, waiting for the next chapter to begin.

Fantastic Four: First Steps premieres July 25.