Director Matt Shakman Shares Easter Eggs in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

After a strong opening weekend for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, director Matt Shakman is sharing some of the fun Easter Eggs that give nods to the comics and WandaVision in the film. Getting to bring the first family of Super Heroes to the big screen was a longtime dream of Shakman, and he threw himself into the project full force.

“It was all under his vision,” Pascal says of the director. “He brought each of us into the world-building and this story of becoming parents and that kind of world-altering experience, all while facing the potential end of their world. It was all led through his aesthetic and emotional guidance.”

Marvel.com sat down with Shakman to talk about the film. The following interview is what came out of the discussion.

MARVEL.COM: Let’s start by talking about the gorgeous world-building. You prioritized practical sets and vintage style on WandaVision, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes that to the next level. What was fun about getting to build this retro-futuristic world?

MATT SHAKMAN: It was similar, in a way. Both of these worlds required a lot of authenticity and research.  We wanted it to be as believable as possible. With Wanda, we were recreating sitcoms. Here, we are building a whole new universe, Earth-828 in the ‘60s. It’s very unlike our ‘60s because this ‘60s has Reed Richards, who is sort of like Oppenheimer meets Einstein meets Steve Jobs. By the mid-‘60s in this universe, he’s invented H.E.R.B.I.E. robots and monorails and all sorts of amazing technology. So, it feels like the ‘60s, but it has this layer of retro-futuristic tech on top of it.

MARVEL.COM: What were some of the influences you were thinking about? Any particular comics, TV shows, movies?

MATT SHAKMAN: Many things. We talked about it as being where “Kirby meets Kubrick.” That’s Jack Kirby, creator of the Fantastic Four along with Stan Lee, and Stanley Kubrick, the director of 2001, the great space opera on film. It was very much an idea of what futurism was at that time, what they thought space or the future would be like. We wanted to put those two together. In order to do that, we did a lot of research. We looked at movies like 2001 but also so many great movies about space: Interstellar, Apollo 13, Apollo 11. There are many amazing documentaries. Then, we were also looking at movies from the ‘60s: The Graduate and James Bond and The French Connection. We were studying palette, and we were studying architecture. Oscar Niemeyer and Eero Saarinen and the TWA terminal at JFK, all these things were influences.

MARVEL.COM: That’s got to be fun to build a world that feels familiar but is also something totally new.

MATT SHAKMAN: You have to think about everything, from their watches to the cars. I love all the amazing work done by our team: Kasra Farahani, our production designer, and Alexandra Byrne, our costume designer. Everyone contributed to building this world. And I love the cars — especially the little bubble cars, which were adorable. [Kasra] found old, interesting European cars and then added things to them to make them seem even more retro-futuristic, mixed with regular, familiar cars from the ‘60s. So it’s believable, grounded, and authentic, but also cohesive in its design.

MARVEL.COM: You mentioned the legendary Jack Kirby, and this film pays tribute to him in many ways. Earth-828 is a reference to his birthday, Aug. 28, and there’s a quote from him in the end credits. Why was it important to you to honor him with this film?

MATT SHAKMAN: He’s a visionary. We would have no Marvel Studios today without Jack Kirby. He created so many of these amazing characters, and he built this world along with Stan Lee. So many of our heroes launched from his mind and his pen, and we wanted to honor that. We wanted to honor his distinctive style.

There are a lot of nods to Jack Kirby in this movie. Naming the universe after him was one of those things. And that quote in the credits, he really drew from his own life. He drew from his own family. He had a daughter named Sue. He had a relative named Ben. He was drawing from his experience on the Lower East Side to build Yancy Street. And that’s why it’s so real. I think art that is very specific and personal tends to be the stuff that we relate to and understand the most.

MARVEL.COM: You’ve talked about how you cast the four family members individually, and you didn’t do any sort of chemistry read. When did the four actors really start to click and feel like a family?

MATT SHAKMAN: Yes, I cast them all individually, and once I started to put those pieces together, I was able to have moments where we’d introduce each other. Vanessa and Pedro got to meet, and Joe and Ebon got to meet, and we slowly started to build those units. But we had a rehearsal period. I’m a theater director, so I’m a sucker for a good rehearsal period. I think it’s really important for building chemistry and history and making it feel lived-in, this family. So, we had three weeks of great rehearsal at Pinewood [Studios in England]. We had a beautiful rehearsal room that was done up to look like the ‘60s with couches and a kitchen, so we could play and improvise and talk about the scenes. We also did research and talked to real astronauts and physicists to immerse ourselves in this world and get it into our bones.

MARVEL.COM: What was the most valuable thing you learned from talking to those experts?

MATT SHAKMAN: We had an astronaut advisor who was amazing. He had done many shuttle trips, and his wife is a delivery room nurse. So, they were an interesting couple to talk to when we were trying to conceive the idea of: How do you give birth in zero-G? They had the two skill sets you need to be able to do that! [Laughs] They were the most remarkable experts to have on hand. So, that’s where that idea came from where “you need gravity to push.”

MARVEL.COM: That was actually one of my questions: You directed Wanda’s trippy birth scene in WandaVision, and here you direct Sue’s interstellar birth scene. You’re responsible for two bonkers birth scenes in the MCU.

MATT SHAKMAN: Well, the birth of my daughter was the most fantastic moment of my life. I think for Reed and Sue, it’s the same way. These are people that have journeyed into space and confronted things like Galactus and are used to the amazing and fantastic. But there’s something about bringing a little person into the world that is truly going into the unknown. I wanted it to have that feeling, but I liked the idea of putting it in a truly fantastic environment. So, sling-shotting around a neutron star and being chased by the Silver Surfer definitely takes the normal level of birth stress to a whole other level.

MARVEL.COM: I caught a few Easter eggs throughout the film — like a sign for “Westview Appliances” in Times Square. Do you have any favorite Easter eggs or details that fans might not notice on the first watch?

MATT SHAKMAN: One of the things I loved about WandaVision is that it’s chock-full of Easter eggs. And I had a grand time doing it, but this one is its own universe, and I wanted it to feel fresh. [The Fantastic Four] are the only Super Heroes in this world, so I didn’t intentionally fill it full of MCU Easter eggs. There is one nod to WandaVision with the Westview Appliance store in Times Square, which is just because I love Vision and Wanda and wanted to nod to that. But mostly, it was about referencing Kirby and the comics and bringing those images to life.

There’s a big plaque in Times Square that honors their battle against Giganto, who’s the big monster. You see a little bit of it at the beginning. That’s important to me because the comic came out on my birthday, Aug. 8, so we wanted to put that one FF comic cover in the movie.

MARVEL.COM: What was the biggest surprise in making this movie?

MATT SHAKMAN: It’s always a challenge, especially when you’re trying to bring characters to life that you love so much. You want to do right by them. You want to do right by Kirby and Lee. You want to do right by this amazing legacy of comic books. But the great thing about Marvel is that whether you’re working on Fantastic Four or WandaVision, it’s a small family of people making this. And everyone cares so very much about getting it right.