Jon Watts to step down as director of Fantastic Four

Marvel has now lost a key component in finally bringing their iconic first family, the Fantastic Four, into the MCU fold.

Coming off the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Jon Watts has decided to step away from directing the upcoming Fantastic Four after having been announced as the director in December 2020.

Fantastic Four would have been Watts’ fourth film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe after he directed the Spider-Man: Homecoming trilogy of films, the most recent of which, No Way Home, has grossed $1.89 billion dollars as of the time of writing this.

Why Jon Watt isn’t directing Fantastic Four

As for the reason Watts is stepping away from the film, most reading this probably assume the worst and think that creative differences were the reason as to why he’s stepping away. However, that’s not the case as he is stepping away purely because he is burnt out on the superhero genre right now. This isn’t surprising as he has spent his entire time the past seven or so years working on his Spider-Man films after directing Cop Car, a wonderful indie film starring Kevin Bacon.

By stepping away from Fantastic Four, Watts will now focus on writing and directing his next, as of yet, untitled film, of which distribution rights were bought by Apple Studios. The film will star George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

As for who will take on the reins of being the director for the third iteration of the Fantastic Four to be released in theaters, there is no indication as to who it will be. However, with Marvel’s tendency to often bring on indie directors to shepherd their films forward, it shouldn’t be surprising if it’s announced that an unknown director has been hired to carry the film forward. There have been very few missteps in the MCU so far, so there should always be optimism regarding who will be hired to work on these films.

Are you looking forward to Fantastic Four? Who do you think will direct? Let us know in the comments below!