It’s 2023, and we still don’t have an official cast for Marvel’s big Fantastic Four reboot. What we continue to get, however, are exciting rumors about the actors who might play one of the four superheroes that are about to enter the MCU. The latest report gives us a familiar name, Adam Driver, who was previously rumored to be in contention to play either Fantastic Four’s Mr. Fantastic or Doctor Doom.
An insider now claims that Driver is the front-runner for the role of Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, and that’s certainly exciting news to hear. Before we go any further, be warned that some spoilers might follow.
In mid-October, we heard that Adam Driver met with Marvel about the Fantastic Four role. The rumor dropped a month after the D23 Expo, where Marvel announced the film’s new director. Matt Shankman, who directed WandaVision, will helm the movie. But Kevin Feige did not reveal other details about the reboot at the time.
It wasn’t clear what role Driver might play in the movie, if any. Mr. Fantastic is one of the obvious choices. But Doctor Doom was also a possibility, assuming Driver would want to continue to play the villain in big franchises.
We speculated at the time that Mister Fantastic would make more sense for the actor, given that he had played Kylo Ren in Star Wars just a few years earlier.
In October, John Krasinski was still in contention for the role. He played a Mr. Fantastic variant in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the character died horribly. But that still left the door open for Krasinski to play the main Reed Richards from another MCU timeline. Since then, however, the actor has clarified that he will not return to the role.
Will Adam Driver play Mr. Fantastic?
Fast-forward to January 2023, and YouTuber Grace Randolph dropped an exciting new tidbit about Adam Driver. The insider mentioned the actor’s new Netflix movie, White Noise, while looking at Netflix’s top movies of the week during her usual box office analysis.
In this context, Randolph said the actor is a front-runner for a “certain stretchy role.” That stretchy role can’t be anybody but Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic.
Sadly, we never got to see Krasinski stretch in Doctor Strange 2, as Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) turned the character into sad spaghetti when he tried to fight her. We’ll have to wait for Fantastic Four to see that sort of superpower in action.
Speaking of waiting, there’s not that much time left until the Fantastic Four premiere. The film will hit theaters on February 14th, 2025. That means the cast can’t remain a secret for too long. Marvel is approaching pre-production, and it’ll have to announce the cast soon.
Last week, we heard that Shakman is interested in keeping Fantastic Four faithful to the comics. That meant casting a Jewish actor as Ben Grimm. We didn’t get additional details about Mr. Fantastic, and Adam Driver’s name did not come up. The report claimed that the Fantastic Four cast is still undecided. But that was another indication that things were moving along.
As for Randolph, she didn’t provide other details about the Fantastic Four cast or Adam Driver. You can watch her new video below.
