SDCC 2024: The Fantastic Four: First Steps Director Teases MCU Galactus: “Go Big or Go Home”

The final page of 1966’s Fantastic Four #48, titled “The Coming of Galactus,” revealed the giant-sized Galactus: a planet-consuming devourer of worlds whose arrival to Earth was heralded by his cosmic scout, the Silver Surfer. Towering before the Fantastic Four — Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Human Torch, and the Thing — the extraterrestrial Eater-of-Worlds declared their planet would sustain him as he drained it of all elemental life with the words: “So speaks Galactus!”

The Stan Lee-Jack Kirby creations will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which screened its first footage and offered the first glimpse of the Ralph Ineson-voiced CGI Galactus during Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con panel on Saturday. Despite its title, First Steps isn’t an origin story for Marvel’s first family — but it is the first live-action appearance of a comic-accurate Galactus. So speaks director Matt Shakman.

“I love Galactus,” the WandaVision helmer told ComicBook following the panel. “You know, when you’ve got Galactus, you gotta go big or go home, as you can see.” (In the footage screened exclusively for Hall H, attendees witnessed the purple-helmeted people eater peer into the window of a skyscraper.)

Galactus and his sky-surfing herald previously appeared in 2007’s Fox-made Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which depicted the “Devourer of Worlds” as an unspeaking cosmic cloud. “We’ve got Ralph Ineson playing [Galactus], and he’s fantastic,” Shakman added of the gravely-voiced Game of Thrones and The First Omen actor.

In the comics, the humanoid Galactus was once Galan, the sole survivor of a dying universe that existed before the Big Bang. Cosmic energies transformed the Taa-born Galan into the armored Galactus, who evolved over billions of years into the planet destroyer. To satiate his hunger, Galactus ravaged untold worlds across the galaxy — until he spared the peaceful planet Zenn-La. Accepting Zenn-La native Norrin Radd as his herald, Galactus first encountered the Fantastic Four when the omnipotent Uatu the Watcher violated his vow of non-interference to warn Earth of its impending doom.

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps — starring Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing — opens only in theaters July 25th, 2025, as part of the MCU Phase 6.

Stay tuned to ComicBook.com’s Comic-Con hub for the latest news and updates out of SDCC 2024.