Jeremy Slater, the head writer of Marvel’s successful Moon Knight Disney Plus series, also wrote an unfortunately maligned movie based on Marvel comics – 2015’s Fantastic Four. But now that it looks as though Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Sue and Johnny Storm will be enveloped properly into the MCU, Slater says they should focus on making renowned brainiac boffin Richards “cool.”
“The version that I was initially drawn to, and was most heavily inspired by, was the Mark Waid Imaginauts run,” Slater recently told Inverse. “I always thought he wrote the coolest version of Reed. Reed has always traditionally been viewed as a sort of fuddy duddy, the guy who’s got his head buried in gizmos. Reed is always presented as a clueless grandpa. The thing I loved about Mark Waid’s interpretation of Reed Richards was that he was a badass, an explorer, an adventurer.”
Slater also told Inverse about his pitch to Fox. “If a giant portal opens up in Central Park, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and The Avengers, they’re all going to wait to see what comes through. Reed Richard is going to sprint right past them. He’s the first person to run through that portal to see what’s on the other side.”
Slater continued; “[Astronauts are] challenging the limits of what’s out there. For me, that was always the coolest version of the character. That was always the aspirational [image] I want to see in a Fantastic Four. It’s not a bunch of science nerds hanging around the Baxter Building. It’s fearless explorers going to the limits of our solar system and beyond, and facing the cosmic weird shit no one else would ever have a chance of stopping.”
Now that Marvel Studios has regained the rights to the Fantastic Four, yet another reboot is likely to be coming. “I have no idea what they’re doing with the character, but I can only speak for myself as a Reed Richards fan, just make him cool. He doesn’t have to be a grandpa,” Slater concluded.
Richards has been played by Ioan Gruffudd, Miles Teller and now John Krasinski, so it will be interesting to see what the next interpretation of the character will be like. While we wait to find out, check out our guide to Marvel’s Phase 4.