Fantastic Four director Matt Shakman has revealed that the MCU’s take on the first family won’t be another origin story.

“One of the things we decided early on was not to do an origin story,” Shakman told EW at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. “One of the ways we’re making it our own thing is we’re not telling the story of them going up and being changed, and starting our story [there]. There’s a lot of well-known narrative that leads into that moment, right? And then you’re making up your new story starting basically at the end of the first act, and we thought, ‘Well, let’s just start this thing off on a completely new foot. So we are beginning after that.’”

The upcoming movie, which was revealed to be officially titled Fantastic Four: First Steps during Marvel’s SDCC panel, will see Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach star as the first family. Julia Garner will play Silver Surfer, Ralph Ineson will play Galactus, and John Malkovich, Paul Walter Hauser, and Natasha Lyonne have also been cast in undisclosed roles. 

During the panel, attendees also got a glimpse of test footage featuring Galactus, Reed Richards “teaching” in a TV show, a flying car, the silhouette of The Thing on a vintage-style dating show, and the gang preparing for a space mission.

Fantastic Four: First Steps is set to the big screen on July 25, 2025. In the meantime, make sure you’re up to date with the MCU with our guide to the story so far in Marvel Phase 5 and a look ahead to Marvel Phase 6.

For a rundown of everything revealed at Marvel’s SDCC panel, check out our Marvel SDCC 2024 live coverage, or for the rest of Comic-Con, there’s our SDCC 2024 live blog. For a recap of everything that happened in Hall H, see our SDCC schedule.