Jon Watts will no longer direct the upcoming Fantastic Four movie.
Watts, who directed the hugely successful Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home for Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, has retired from the Marvel Cinematic Universe project.
“Making three Spider-Man films has been an amazing and life changing experience for me. I am eternally grateful to have been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the past seven years. I am confident that we will work together again and I can’t wait to bring Fantastic Four’s amazing vision to life,” Watts said in a statement to .
Kevin Feige, President and Co-President of Marvel Studios, Louis D’Esposito. said in a statement: “Working with Jon on the Spider-Man films has been a real pleasure. We’ve been excited to continue our work with him to bring the Fantastic Four to the MCU, but we understand and support his reasons for stepping down. We are optimistic that at some point we will have the opportunity to work together again.”
It was Feige who announced in December 2020 during Disney’s Investors Day presentation that Watts would lead the Fantastic Four.
Fantastic Four, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, launched Marvel Comics in 1961. It was this comic book that reinvented the magazine publisher known as Timely and made comic book superheroes more realistic and relatable for audiences.
The comic may have had instant success, but adaptations for the big screen never really caught on. In the mid-1990s, Roger Corman produced a cheap, hackneyed feature film that never made it to theaters — but can be found on YouTube. In the 2000s, when 20th Century held intellectual property rights, Tim Story directed two films starring Chris Evans and Jessica Alba, among others. This film couple did mediocre at the box office, but critics and most fans weren’t thrilled.
A 2015 reboot directed by Josh Trank and starring Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan was DOA after critics and fans flatly dismissed the film for a number of reasons.
Marvel Studios reacquired the film rights to their characters when Disney bought 21st Century Fox in 2019. Since then, fans have been clamoring for a Fantastic Four movie that does justice to the iconic comic.
17 o’clock: Updated with commentary from Watts.