SDCC 2024: Fantastic Four: First Steps Taps Michael Giacchino as Composer

Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps has tapped Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille, Up, The Batman) to handle its score. Giacchino’s involvement was revealed as part of Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. Fans were shown early visual from the film set in a “retro future” of 1960s NYC, with Giacchino’s music helping to complete the atmosphere. Marvel’s Fantastic Four has been wrapped in secrecy, and SDCC 2024 was the first time Marvel Studios is letting fans into this new corner of their world. 

In addition to being an Oscar winner, Michael Giacchino is no stranger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The composer changed hats and made his directorial debut with the Marvel Special Presentation Werewolf by Night, which was an overwhelming hit with fans when released in 2022. 

Marvel Studios’ long-awaited The Fantastic Four film is set for a 2025 release, and the movie has a stacked cast. Starring Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing), the film is also set to feature Ralph Ineson (The Witch) as Galactus, Julia Garner (Ozark) as Shalla-Bal/Silver Surfer, and John Malkovich and Natasha Lyonne in unknown roles. Malkovich and Lyonne aren’t the only stars whose parts are being kept under wraps. Emmy-winner Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird, Inside Out 2) is also in the film. 

Fantastic Four was a featured piece of Marvel’s Hall H panel – even though the film will officially begin production right after SDCC. In fact, a Fantaticar was literally flown onstage in Hall H to take the cast back to London for filming. In a tie-in announcement, the Marvel Hall H panel ended with the reveal that Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom, in his own upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman previously teased how this new side of the MCU will be one-of-a-kind: “It’s different in so many ways,” Shakman explained to Collider. “I wish I could be specific. I wish I could say more. But we are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material. I wish I could say more. I would love to, but I can’t. But I think it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you’ve seen before.”

Fantastic Four: First Steps has a release date of July 25, 2025.