‘Fantastic Four’: Vanessa Kirby to Play Sue Storm!!

In a huge piece of casting news, Vanessa Kirby has signed on to play the role of Sue Storm in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot alongside Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm. The film will mark the debut of the signature quartet – known as Marvel‘s first family – into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Kirby was a late front-runner for the iconic Marvel role, and has landed the part of the Invisible Woman in one of the most important projects Marvel will launch going forward, after a troubled time when projects were met with mixed critical and commercial reaction. Kirby shot to fame in Netflix’s The Crown, playing the young Princess Margaret, for which she received a Best Supporting Actress award at the BAFTAs. Mainstream theatrical success would follow with her role as Alana Mitsopolis, aka the White Widow, in Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Dead Reckoning Part One. In 2021, she received her first Academy Award nomination for her heartbreaking lead role in Pieces of a Woman.

Fantastic Four was announced by Kevin Feige, after years of speculation, with a November 2024 release date during 2022’s San Diego Comic-Con, although that date has since been pushed back. John Krasinski made an appearance as a variant of Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022, before being unceremoniously slaughtered by Elizabeth Olsen‘s Scarlet Witch.

Sue Storm’s On-Screen History

The first portrayal of Sue Storm was by Rebecca Staab in the unreleased 1994 film The Fantastic Four. The film was never officially released, although pirated copies of the film have circulated. In the 2005 film Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Jessica Alba took on the role of Sue Storm, while in the 2015 reboot Fant4stic,Storm was played by Kate Mara. Mara‘s performance focused on Sue’s scientific expertise and her role as the team’s mediator. Although the film was critically reviled, Mara‘s portrayal was praised by some for her on-screen presence.

The film will be directed by Matt Shakman, who was responsible for overseeing the critically acclaimed WandaVision for Marvel and Disney+, and the script is being dealt with by Josh Friedman. Friedman has had a prolific career as a writer and story developer. As well as having written the story for James Cameron’s 2022 blockbuster, Avatar: The Way of Water, the screenwriter also developed TV series Snowpiercer, Foundation, and Emerald City. He also wrote the story for Terminator: Dark Fate and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.