{"id":291940,"date":"2025-07-26T00:36:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291940\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T00:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:36:14","slug":"first-steps-director-on-tragic-silver-surfer-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291940\/","title":{"rendered":"First Steps Director on Tragic Silver Surfer Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt took over three decades for a filmmaker to pull it off, but Matt Shakman<\/a> has now made the definitive live-action adaptation of Marvel\u2019s first family by way of The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFantastic Four is not only the most well received blockbuster of the summer, but it\u2019s also just set 2025\u2019s opening night record of $24.4 million. The critical and commercial win couldn\u2019t come at a better time for Marvel Studios amid the superhero genre\u2019s post-pandemic inconsistency. And given the heavy losses<\/a> that Shakman himself has endured recently, one can\u2019t help but root for him and his film.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen THR last caught up with Shakman for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters<\/a>, he mentioned his admiration for Christopher Nolan and Stanley Kubrick, and so it doesn\u2019t come as a surprise that his Fantastic Four invites comparisons to Nolan\u2019s Interstellar<\/a> (2014) and Kubrick\u2019s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Fantastic Four contains shots and sequences that pay homage to both pictures, but like Interstellar, the film is largely about the great lengths parents will go to in order to protect their children.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cT.S. Eliot said, \u2018Good artists borrow, great artists steal,\u2019 and I definitely am not ashamed of stealing from some of the folks that I love so much,\u201d Shakman tells The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cSo Interstellar was a huge reference, as well as 2001 and Apollo 13.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInterstellar\u2019s central relationship between a loving father and daughter inspired the 2014 film\u2019s production codename, Flora\u2019s Letter, which was meant to be a tribute to Nolan\u2019s own daughter who cameos in the film. Fantastic Four\u2019s primary conflict involves Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm\u2019s (Vanessa Kirby) efforts to protect their soon-to-be-born baby, Franklin, from the wrath of a planet-devouring demigod named Galactus (Ralph Ineson<\/a>). Thus, Shakman drew upon the challenges that he and his wife Maggie Malone experienced in giving birth to their daughter, Maisie. The 9-year-old girl also has her own cameo in the opening minutes of Fantastic Four.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI brought so much of my own experience as a husband and as a father. The birth of my daughter was the most fantastic moment of my life. So the birth in this movie evokes all those feelings that I had on that day,\u201d Shakman shares. \u201c[Maisie Shakman] really wanted to do this fun little cameo where she\u2019s saved by Johnny Storm. I was so nervous that day, but she was just such a cool customer and she had such a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFamilial sacrifice also plays a part in Shalla-Bal\/Silver Surfer\u2019s (Julia Garner) subplot, prompting Shakman to conduct additional photography a little over two months ago for the sake of showing, not telling.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was during post that I felt like I really wanted to see this thing that we talked about, which is the idea of her sacrifice and the decision that she faced in choosing between her family, her planet and her own life,\u201d Shakman says. \u201cIt\u2019s so evocative to the themes of the movie at large and reflective, no pun intended, of the Fantastic Four\u2019s crisis and their conflict, so it felt like it was something we needed to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a recent conversation with THR, Shakman also discusses the character overlap between Sue Storm and Wanda Maximoff, as well as the original plan behind the mid-credit scene.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo of the most optimistic superhero movies ever made have landed within two weeks of each other. They also bypass origin stories for the most part. Were you and <\/strong>Superman<\/strong> writer-director James Gunn drinking water from the same well the last few years?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) Perhaps! It\u2019s amazing how the zeitgeist can create things, but no, I\u2019ve never met James Gunn. I\u2019m a huge fan of his work. I\u2019m also a huge Superman fan, so I\u2019m thrilled that they\u2019re both out this month.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDirector Matt Shakman<\/a> on the set of The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJay Maidment\/20th Century Studios\/Marvel<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you helmed <\/strong>WandaVision<\/a><\/strong><\/a>, Marvel was still approaching their TV series with the same methodology as their movies. They\u2019ve since gone the more traditional route. Thus, did you make a seamless transition to the feature side of things?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, making WandaVision was wonderful. It was the highlight of my directing career before getting the chance to make Fantastic Four. Both of them are right up there for me, and it was a great opportunity to work with everyone at Marvel very closely and to realize just how intimate an experience it is to work at Marvel. It\u2019s a small family making something. You think of [Marvel] as the production company behind the studio and these enormous tentpoles, but [their projects] are really made by very few people, passionate people, working really hard. So making six hours of Wanda definitely felt like swinging two or three bats, and while Fantastic Four was still a giant task, it\u2019s a little easier to focus on two hours of material instead of six.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSue and Wanda both depict the concept of \u201chysterical strength.\u201d The classic example is when a mother can somehow lift a car to save her baby, and <\/strong>Fantastic Four<\/strong> co-creator Jack Kirby apparently witnessed something like that en route to creating the Hulk. So how conscious were you of Sue and Wanda\u2019s overlap?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe two strongest people I know are my wife and my daughter. They constantly inspire me with their strength, and I see that in Sue and in Wanda, so I tried to bring that [strength] to both of them. They\u2019re both amazing characters in Marvel and in comic books, in general, and I\u2019ve been so lucky to help bring both of their stories to life, both through WandaVision and now Fantastic Four. Wanda is a deeply emotional character, as is Sue. They both have incredible emotional intelligence, and they are handling so much, having both gone through so much. We put Sue through the wringer in this movie, for sure. Vanessa Kirby and Lizzie Olsen are both incredible actors, and getting the chance to work with them both to bring these characters to life was amazing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPedro Pascal\u2019s Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby\u2019s Sue Storm in The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJay Maidment\/20th Century Studios\/Marvel<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen <\/strong>Materialists<\/strong>, but Pedro Pascal\u2019s character voluntarily augmented himself in a way that became a blessing for him. Conversely, with Reed\u2019s elasticity being <\/strong>involuntarily<\/strong> forced upon him, does he consider his power to be a blessing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIn [1961\u2019s] Fantastic Four #1, Reed basically says something that\u2019s similar to what Uncle Ben says to Spider-Man: \u201cWith great power comes great responsibility.\u201d In the very first Fantastic Four comic book that Kirby and [Stan] Lee created, they say, \u201cWe need to use these powers for good. We need to make our world better because of what happened to us.\u201d So very early on, they make that decision, and it\u2019s part of their optimism. It\u2019s part of their civic-minded nature. And so, yes, I think they all think of it as being a blessing, but maybe with the exception of Ben. Throughout the comic books, there\u2019s been an ongoing story of Ben struggling with questions of, \u201cIs he a man? Is he a monster who\u2019s trying to hold onto his humanity?\u201d He\u2019s the one of the four that isn\u2019t in control of his powers. He can\u2019t turn on his rock nature or turn it off. So his powers are a burden for him in a way that the others\u2019 powers are not.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you and Ebon first discussed the material, was he a good sport about playing another character with culinary interests?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) The culinary part of it wasn\u2019t really what we talked about from the beginning. That was something that happened as we were going along, and the idea that Ben was the chef and worked with Herbie to cook stuff just made sense. It really sprung out of who Ben Grimm is. He\u2019s not really a blood relative of any of them, but he\u2019s the glue that holds this family together. [Writer\u2019s Note: Funnily enough, despite being referred to as \u201cCousin,\u201d Moss-Bachrach\u2019s character on The Bear also isn\u2019t blood-related to the story\u2019s central family.]<\/p>\n

\n\tI love August Wilson\u2019s play Joe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone, and there\u2019s a character called Bynum because he binds everyone together. So I think of Ben as being that. He\u2019s very community minded. He loves Yancy Street where he grew up. He still goes back there. We had [those scenes] in the film for a reason. He\u2019s also very family-oriented, and he\u2019s an incredibly kind, caring person, while also being hilarious. That\u2019s what\u2019s so great about him. He has the rough, hard exterior, and yet he has this soft gooey center. Ebon is just amazing at bringing him to life, and he\u2019s such a funny actor, but also such a brilliant dramatic actor. He\u2019s able to hold all of those elements of Ben in one brilliant performance.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tH.E.R.B.I.E and Ebon Moss-Bachrach\u2019s Ben Grimm\/The Thing in The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios\/Marvel Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tI asked Joseph Quinn at <\/strong>Warfare<\/strong>\u2019s press day if you remembered him on the <\/strong>Game of Thrones<\/strong> \u201cSpoils of War\u201d set in 2016. His character was covered in armor, he only had a couple scenes, and there were a thousand people on that set. This was also long before he covered Metallica on Netflix. Did he actually register with you back then?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, he did. A hundred percent. Joe is a great actor, and he\u2019s also a lovely guy. We had two or three days together on Game of Thrones. It wasn\u2019t a lot, but still very memorable. I thought, \u201cThis kid is great,\u201d and I\u2019ve been so impressed by his range. Looking at Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Warfare, Gladiator II and this movie, everything that he\u2019s done is so different. He\u2019s very transformative as an actor and just alive. He has such a spark to him. So I absolutely remember him, and he was on my list [for Johnny Storm] right away.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJoseph Quinn\u2019s Johnny Storm\/Human Torch in Matt Shakman\u2019s The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJay Maidment\/20th Century Studios\/Marvel<\/p>\n

\n\tThe design of this movie is mighty impressive across the board, especially <\/strong>Kasra Farahani<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s production design. During the strikes, I believe that\u2019s all you could really work on, so do you credit that unusual time period for how intricate and immaculate everything is?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, having a little extra time was definitely very helpful. We had it on WandaVision too because of the pandemic. We were able to do storyboarding and concept art. So a lot of design work happened during that period, even some early VFX look development, and I do credit that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKasra is amazing. He is a singular artist, a genius and just a wonderful collaborator. We went deep into Syd Mead, Oscar Niemeyer, Eero Saarinen and the World\u2019s Fair in New York in the mid-\u201960s. We had all of these great reference points, as well as Jack Kirby and the comic books, in building this world that would feel grounded and authentic. We wanted it to feel like the \u201860s that we know from history, but with this layer of futurism on top of it, a layer that comes from Reed Richards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tReed didn\u2019t exist in our \u201860s because we\u2019re on a different Earth in a different universe, but he existed there, and he\u2019s like Steve Jobs, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein and Robert Moses all combined. For 20 or 30 years, he\u2019s been changing that city in a way that our New York in the \u201860s did not. So it was about trying to find those layers of history and then finding those offshoots of Reed Richards\u2019 tech that grow out of the familiar New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen their ship prepares to dock in outer space, you have the <\/strong>Interstellar<\/strong>-type shot where the camera is fastened to the exterior of the ship. Overall, was that movie one of your references?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI love Interstellar, I love [Christopher] Nolan and I love Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 2001: A Space Odyssey. When you see a shot of [Excelsior] docking, it is absolutely a loving homage to the Pan Am jet heading towards the space station in 2001. T.S. Eliot said, \u201cGood artists borrow, great artists steal,\u201d and I definitely am not ashamed of stealing from some of the folks that I love so much. So Interstellar was a huge reference, as well as 2001 and Apollo 13. There\u2019s this amazing IMAX doc [called Apollo 11] about the Apollo 11 mission, and it was made for the 50th anniversary in 2019. It is incredible, and it was another huge reference point for us.<\/p>\n

\n\t[Note: This question\/answer contains spoilers.] This is the part where I ask about the mid-credit scene. Was that spot always earmarked for the Russos to fill in later? Or were there other possibilities along the way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNo, we always knew that there would be a tag scene and that Doctor Doom would be a part of it. We had a lot of different ideas of what that scene could be, but we knew it would eventually be shot during the making of Avengers: Doomsday. So once Doomsday started to come together in terms of what story they were telling, it started to become clear what we wanted to do for our tag.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn Malkovich\u2019s Red Ghost. Was he part of the Subterranea story, the crime syndicate subplot or that montage in the opening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe was part of the opening. He was a part of introducing us to the Fantastic Four \u2014 who they are and their powers. But we had so many things to introduce: this new universe, this new earth, this retro-futuristic \u201860s, four main characters and two villains in Galactus<\/a> and Silver Surfer. So it was a lot, and it just felt like we didn\u2019t have the landscape to properly do justice to that. So I\u2019m sorry Malkovich is not in the film because he was wonderful.<\/p>\n

\n\t[Note: This question\/answer contains spoilers.] I believe Shalla-Bal\u2019s (Julia Garner) flashback was added in the later stages. Was that a response to test audiences and wanting to bolster her inner conflict a bit more?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNo, the awakening element of the Surfer was something that evolved throughout the script work and throughout post-production. So it was during post that I felt like I really wanted to see this thing that we talked about, which is the idea of her sacrifice and the decision that she faced in choosing between her family, her planet and her own life. It\u2019s so evocative to the themes of the movie at large and reflective, no pun intended, of the Fantastic Four\u2019s crisis and their conflict, so it felt like it was something we needed to see.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you have another Marvel project you\u2019d love to pursue after this? Or are you not getting ahead of yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m definitely not getting ahead of myself. It\u2019s been three years of working closely on this one, and it has been a dream come true to work on these characters. I\u2019ve loved the Fantastic Four since I was a kid, and it\u2019s an honor to bring them to the MCU. So I\u2019m just focusing on this one right now.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve obviously been busy, but have you had a chance to watch <\/strong>Agatha All Along<\/strong> yet? They managed to shoot on Blondie Street one last time before Warner Bros. Ranch was sadly torn down.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I actually haven\u2019t [had a chance to watch]. I\u2019m so behind. I have seen pretty much nothing over the last year, so I have a lot to catch up on. But it\u2019s incredibly sad [regarding Warner Bros. Ranch]. As a child actor, I grew up working on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot. I did a TV show there called Just the Ten of Us for years. When I was 10, 11 and 12, I\u2019d skateboard on Blondie Street, and I feel very nostalgic and sentimental for it. One of the reasons why I really wanted to shoot Wanda there was to be surrounded by all that great sitcom history. So it\u2019s a shame that it\u2019s gone; it really was a special place.<\/p>\n

\n\tDecades from now, when you\u2019re reminiscing about the making of <\/strong>Fantastic Four<\/strong>, what day will you likely recall first?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe day that my daughter filmed her part in the movie. This movie is all about family, and I brought so much of my own experience as a husband and as a father. The birth of my daughter was such an amazing moment; it was the most fantastic moment of my life. So the birth in this movie evokes all those feelings that I had on that day, and when the chance to bring her into this movie came up, she really wanted to do this fun little cameo where she\u2019s saved by Johnny Storm. I was so nervous that day, but she was just such a cool customer and she had such a great time. So that will be the day I probably think of first.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a former child actor, if your daughter expresses an interest in going down that path, will you encourage it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m deeply ambivalent about child acting. It\u2019s a difficult path, but I ended up coming out okay because I had great parents. It\u2019s hard to be professionalized at a young age, and I just think acting, or whatever you choose to do, should come from a place of joy and that you should find your way to it naturally and organically. A lot of child actors end up finding their way to it inorganically, and it\u2019s not something they choose. So whatever my daughter does, I just want to make sure that she\u2019s the one choosing it, and that she knows what she\u2019s signing up for and that she\u2019s coming to it with love.<\/p>\n

\n\t***
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing in movie theaters nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took over three decades for a filmmaker to pull it off, but Matt Shakman has now made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,52729,100767,3943,20192,16,15,108616],"class_list":{"0":"post-291940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-interstellar","10":"tag-matt-shakman","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-the-fantastic-four-first-steps","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wandavision"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114916739299271831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}