Here’s what happened the last time someone tried to make 1960s Fantastic Four

The Fantastic Four are returning to cinemas next summer, and if the new movie is set in the 1960s, it won’t be the first time someone has tried to take that approach.

On February 14, 2024 – Valentine’s Day – Marvel announced the cast for their forthcoming Fantastic Four flick via the following announcement: “Pedro Pascal is the brilliant and elastic Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby is the powerful Susan Storm (The Invisible Woman), Ebon Moss-Bachrach is the clobberin’ Ben Grimm (The Thing) and Joseph Quinn is the charismatic hot head Johnny Storm (The Human Torch).”

The reveal was accompanied by an illustration that featured each of the actors as their respective characters. And the kitsch picture had fans – including us – speculating that the story will play out in the 1960s.

If that’s the case, it won’t be the first time that a filmmaker has tried to bring these characters to life via a period piece – an effort that was ultimately thwarted, but helped inspire aspects of the Ant-Man movies. Let us explain…

What happened the last time someone tried to make a 1960s Fantastic Four movie

In 2003, Peyton Reed directed a musical comedy that was set in the 1960s. Down With Love starred Ewan McGregor and Renee Zelwegger, and paid homage to the camp films of the era that starred Rock Husdon and Doris Day.

At that time, he was also working on a Fantastic Four flick, and planned to place it in the same period. “I actually developed Fantastic Four when it was at Fox, and this would have been about 2002 or 2003,” Reed told Collider during a 2019 Q&A. “I was doing a movie at Fox at the time and they were gonna do Fantastic Four, and I went in and pitched to [then Fox CEO] Tom Rothman.”

“I developed it for about a year and we went through some different permutations and some different writers, but yes, one of the big ideas was a set-in-the-60s thing that at the time was structurally gonna be basically like A Hard Day’s Night, where we were not going to even deal with the origin story,” he continued.

“It was just going to be like you’re in Downtown Manhattan and they’re there. It was a pretty exciting idea. At the time – again this was 2002 or ’03 – early on, way pre-MCU, I felt like Fox was not gonna make it.”

If the new MCU movie is set in the 1960s, that Hard Day’s Night influence is somewhat prescient, as Doctor Strange mentions The Beatles in reference to the Fantastic Four during Multiverse of Madness.

How ‘Marvel’s First Family’ influenced the Ant-Man movies

Peyton Reed went on to direct the Ant-Man trilogy, and used his Fantastic Four plans as inspiration for Scott Lang’s journey and relationships.

“I developed Fantastic Four… long before the MCU,” Reed told Den of Geek last year. “And absolutely I poured that into these movies, particularly into Quantumania. I grew up loving Fantastic Four, and then I found myself directing the Ant-Man family, and there are similarities. They are kind of a dysfunctional family of superheroes in the Marvel Universe. And, you know, in Fantastic Four, they would go into the Negative Zone, and here it’s the Quantum Realm.”

Quantumania producer Stephen Broussard concurs, telling Den of Geek that the way they approached the family dynamics in Ant-Man could be a guide for Fantastic Four, stating: “I think they’ll have to be mindful of everything we’ve done. I’d like to think that [Reed] kind of poured everything he liked about [the Fantastic Four] into this. This became his family Marvel superhero story, and that’s no secret. It’s absolutely there.”

WandaVision helmer Matt Shakman is directing the new Fantastic Four movie, and we’ll learn more about his approach closer to the movie’s June 25, 2025 release.