Spider-Man Director Jon Watts to Helm New Movie With George Clooney and Brad Pitt; Could Fantastic Four Get Delayed?

As it turns out, Jon Watts appears to be set for the immediate future. The filmmaker is currently putting the finishing touches on Spider-Man: No Way Home and his next project looks to be one of the hottest things in Hollywood. In fact, the project has attracted so much attention, we’ve got to ask the question — is something going to end up happening to Watts’ Fantastic Four?

In the initial reporting from THR, it’s said the Watts film package is being sought after by Sony, Lionsgate, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Annapurna, Universal, MGM, and Warner Brothers. Exact details are being kept under wraps though Watts wrote the project and will also direct and produce. The movie already has George Clooney and Brad Pitt both attached to star in and produce.

The report also goes on to say it could be the biggest payday of Watts’ career, even after factoring in the three Spider-Man movies he’s directed for Sony and Marvel Studios.

As of now, Fantastic Four has yet to set a release date, and it’s believed the studio is still relatively early in the development of the feature. Though Watts has been announced as the director, a writer has yet to be unveiled.  Since the untitled Watts project is being billed as a thriller, the production timeline on it should be relatively light and if it begins shooting by the end of this year, it’s totally plausible the filmmaker could start shooting Fantastic in the second half of 2022 and get it prepped for a late 2023 or 2024 release.

“I think the MCU is a beautiful combination of both (established actors and new faces),” Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige previously told ComicBook.com. “I think you look no further than Simu in Shang-Chi, like Chris Hemsworth, like Tom Hiddleston, like Tom Holland, an actor that hadn’t been seen by a tremendous amount of people before, or you have a Benedict stepping into Doctor Strange or Christian Bale stepping into Gor in our Thor film. It is always a beautiful combination of both, and it really is about the search for the best actor for the job whether that actor is known to the world yet or not.”

Marvel’s Fantastic Four has yet to set a release date.

Cover photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images