‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps': Instant Oscar odds

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6 days ago

Back in 2018, Black Panther took Marvel Studios' first steps towards achieving Best Picture status. And Ryan Coogler's gamechanging blockbuster remains the only superhero picture set in either the Marvel or the DC cinematic universes to be in the running for that particular prize ... unless you choose to count the Batman-affiliated — but also Batman-free — Joker.
Ever since then, Marvel has hoped to repeat in the Best Picture race, mounting campaigns for 2019's Infinity Saga-capping Avengers: Endgame (a campaign that Robert Downey Jr. declined to participate in) as well as the box-office disappointment Eternals, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao. But lightning hasn't struck twice, not even for Coogler's own Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever — although that film did score the studio's first-ever acting nomination with Angela Basset securing a Best Supporting Actress nod.
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Now here comes The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the cinematic reintroduction of Marvel Comics's First Family — a super-squad that's particularly close to studio chief Kevin Feige's heart. Feige has been intimately involved with the latest attempt to make the Fantastic Four a viable film franchise after earlier incarnations struggled. The movie stars Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby as married team leaders Reed and Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as hothead Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bacharach as the stone-faced Ben Grimm and tasks the quartet with a truly impossible mission: stop the planet-devouring Galactus from ending the world as they know it.
This new take on the Fantastic Four hews closely to the version of the team that launched the Marvel Era of superhero comics in the 1960s, with retro-future elements that essentially make it a period piece — a genre that's always popular with voters. The movie also throws its arms around the theme of familial love and devotion, digging towards an emotional core that many recent Marvel movies haven't tried to reach.
Despite the obvious devotion that Feige has for the Fantastic Four, though, First Steps won't become Marvel's second Best Picture nominee. Key to Black Panther's success in the category was a narrative that grounded the action with thematic weight and a world we hadn't seen put onscreen before. This film may take place on a different planet in the Marvel multiverse — specifically Earth 828, so named to mark the Aug. 28 birthday of Marvel legend and Fantastic Four cocreator Jack Kirby — but the conceit of a heightened '60s world isn't exactly revolutionary when placed alongside pastiche period movies like Down With Love, Tomorrowland or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Furthermore, the storytelling displays signs of the editing-room overhauls that First Steps director Matt Shakman has alluded to in pre-release interviews, including the elimination of John Malkovich's role as one of the team's antagonists, the Red Ghost. And while Shakman — who entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe with WandaVision — was the first director of a Marvel television series to receive a Best Director nomination at the Emmys, he's not going to achieve a similar feat at the Oscars due to the movie's occasionally muddled vision and visuals.
Among the cast, Kriby has the meatiest role as Sue Storm and is a past Best Actress nominee to boot; she received that nod for her star turn in 2020's Pieces of a Woman. But like her costars, Kirby is too often stymied by a plot that omits the grace notes amidst the blockbuster bombast, with even the emotional moments ratcheted up to 11.
While the major Oscar statuettes may be out of First Steps's grasp, this quartet still has enough power to make their presence felt in the awards race. Here are the four categories where the Fantastic Four stands their best shot at a nomination.
Best Production Design
Already an Emmy nominee for his work on the first season of the Marvel series Loki, Kasra Farahani could very easily add "Oscar nominee" to his résumé for bringing the Silver Age of comics to life onscreen. The bulky, boxy machines, sleek skyscrapers and pointy cars and spacecrafts capture a very specific vision of a near-future Earth that only existed in the minds of comics artists and readers. One could make the case that the production design is the real star of the movie, and voters could choose to award the film accordingly.
Best Score
An avowed lover of all things retro — just watch his Hammer horror-influenced one-shot Marvel tale, Werewolf by Night, which he scored and directed — Michael Giacchino's choral-backed title theme announces itself as a contender from the film's first frame. His subsequent compositions also complement The Fantastic Four: First Step's overall aesthetic, somehow sounding both analogue and digital at the same time. (Some might argue that this is Giacchino's second time scoring a Fantastic Four film: he memorably soundtracked Pixar's The Incredibles, which was a loving homage to the comic team.) Giacchino has been nominated twice before in this category for two of his other Pixar efforts, Ratatouille and Up (he won for the latter), so this could be his inaugural Marvel nod.
Best Original Song
Like James Gunn's Superman, First Steps has its own fake song that could be a real candidate for Best Original Song honors. Played over the closing credits, "Let Us Be Devoured" is a Flower Power-esque folk ballad that takes a more positive view of Galactus's world-eating habits. Bonus: the song was written and performed by Giacchiono's spouse, Andrea Datzman. Reed and Sue would approve of a matched set of husband-and-wife nominations.
Best Visual Effects
Real talk: Franklin Richards — Reed and Sue's infant son — has one of the least convincing CGI doubles since all of those falling babies in The Flash. But Julia Garner's Silver Surfer and her towering boss Galactus are major visual-effects wins, more than making up for the low-fi versions that previously made it to the big screen in the 2007's justly-forgotten, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The VFX team also clearly worked in concert with Farahani, adding retro-future digital flourishes to his IRL production design.
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