The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman has discussed his surprising comment that suggested lead actor Pedro Pascal had been cast as Reed Richards in order to portray someone who ends up “leading the Avengers”.
Shakman’s description raised eyebrows last week, not least because it appeared to highlight the importance of Pascal’s character in Avengers: Doomsday, a movie cloaked in secrecy that’s still 18 months away, while Pascal’s version of Richards is yet to make his debut.
Now, speaking with IGN, Shakman has sought to clarify his comments — which he insisted “the internet has run with” and “misinterpreted”. Instead, the future of Reed Richards in the MCU is something for the Russo brothers, the directing duo behind Avengers: Doomsday, to reveal.
For context, here’s what Shakman said of casting Reed Richards previously, in conversation with Variety.
“He goes from being the nerdy scientist who’s locked away in the lab, to the husband and the father who’d do anything to protect his family, to the guy who’s leading the Avengers. I realized that the version we were building had to have all of those elements.”
Asked for more detail on how Reed Richards would undergo that transformation from scientist to multiverse defender, here’s what Shakman said, reproduced in full:
“Well, I can’t speak too much about Doomsday,” he began. “And the idea of him as the leader of the Avengers in Doomsday was something that the internet has run with and is actually they misinterpreted something I said. I was actually talking about Reed Richards in the comics and how different he can be from issue to issue and from run to run, and that sometimes he is that cerebral scientist locked away in the lab trying to solve everything. Sometimes he’s leading the Avengers and running off and trying to save the day. Sometimes there’s an emphasis on him as a family man.
“So I needed him to encompass all of those things,” he continued, “a leader who’s willing to jump into the fray, a person who’s in the lab trying to solve everything, and a devoted husband and father and best friend and family member, right? And so for me, it was talking about how I went about finding the best actor for that part and finding Pedro Pascal to play someone… An actor who could do all of those things really. So where Reed Richards goes in the Avengers: Doomsday is for the Russo brothers to tell you.”
It’s an intriguing response from Shakman, and one that certainly seems to walk back the idea of Reed Richards already being set to be crowned leader of the Avengers within the MCU.
That said, while the character certainly has been a part of the Avengers in the comics, he’s not a character well-known for leading the whole team. And in both quotes from Shakman, originally and now, there’s the confirmation that Pascal was cast as someone who could indeed step up as Avengers lead, should the need arrive.
And then there’s the confirmation that, for anything Avengers: Doomsday related, Shakman defers to the directors of that film. Of course the Russo brothers will be the ones to discuss the characters in their film, just as Shakman is here. But perhaps Shakman has already said too much?
The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters this Friday, July 25, 2025. Avengers: Doomsday then picks up the team’s story as they join the fight against Doctor Doom, from December 18, 2026.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
