Michael Giacchino is the man behind The Fantastic Four: First Steps score. He is no stranger to writing scores in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He has previously written music for Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. He also wrote the score and directed Werewolf by Night. Now, with his score for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Giacchino sets the stage musically for the first family of Super Heroes.
“Honestly with most Marvel movies — and I’ve worked on a lot of them — there’s a lot of angst and not a lot of joy,” Giacchino told Marvel.com with a laugh. “So, when you get to do something like this, it feels unique and special.”
Director Matt Shakman brought Giacchino on to the movie early on in production. The composer got to work and threw himself into the project with gusto. The film takes place in a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, and Shakman wanted the score to encompass that space-age optimism feeling.
“The movie that Matt has put together is so unlike any of the other Marvel films that we’ve seen, which is really wonderful,” Giacchino adds. “I feel like it gives us some leeway to make some choices that we might not normally make on any of the other characters’ films.”
In this video, Giacchino shares more about his inspiration behind the score:
This is a unique movie in the MCU, and Giacchino made some unique choices. One of the choices was using a 100-voice choir for the theme. These were recorded in London at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. Giacchino shared that for this project, he wanted the singers to sound bright and full of hope. This is in comparison to how choirs are often used to create a dramatic or gothic mood.
Giacchino shared that he was initially a little nervous about pitching the vocal-heavy theme to Shakman and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. He wondered, “Is it weird to do this?” However, the first time they heard the chorus sing the words “Fan-tas-tic FOUR!” he and the filmmakers all knew they had something special.
“A hundred people in a choir is something you normally don’t do,” Giacchino adds. “They said they can’t even remember the last time they recorded a hundred-person choir at Abbey Road, so that was really fun. But there’s a power to actual human beings giving their voice to something. You can’t get that any other way. For me, this film is all about the human aspect of these characters, so I wanted the music to support that.”
The theme for First Steps kicks off with a chorus of female voices, Giacchino noted. This sets the tone for the melody that will be coming. “For me, that was sort of like the beating heart behind Sue,” he explains. “Sue in some ways is the one leading the charge in this film, and I really liked that.”
Something else that was different about this movie and score is when the theme was written. Giacchino wrote and completed the Fantastic Four theme well before the movie was finished. He shared in the interview that he found himself thinking a lot about the 1983 astronaut classic The Right Stuff, along with the joyous sounds of Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade.
“I remember seeing that as a kid and just being amazed by all the lights, rhythms, and synthesizer sounds,” he recalls. “It felt so futuristic and hopeful and optimistic. I was like, ‘Wow, if we can grab some of that feeling and mash it up with The Right Stuff, maybe we’ll have our theme.’”
While not a Marvel Studios film, Giacchino also wrote the music for another retro-futuristic family with his score for Pixar’s The Incredibles. While there are some similarities between the two films, Giacchino was careful not to revisit the same sonic territory for Fantastic Four. While The Incredibles leans into the jazzy and spy movie vibes, The Fantastic Four is focused on bright melodies and space-age curiosity.
“In my very first conversation with Matt, we talked about that,” Giacchino says. “I wanted to be very upfront that The Incredibles obviously owes a lot to the Fantastic Four, and now that this [movie] is being done, we wanted to separate ourselves from that as much as we possibly could. So, the idea of doing a jazz score like The Incredibles was, for me, off the table.”
The main Fantastic Four theme is clearly a standout piece. However, the entire soundtrack has some musical surprises. Giacchino is known for naming his tracks with puns and clever wordplay, with the Fantastic Four boasting titles like Herald Today, Gone Tomorrow, Out to Launch, and A Galactus Case of the Munchies. After the end credits, there is a clip of The Fantastic Four Power Hour. This is a retro cartoon that reimagines Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben as the heroes in their own animated kids’ show.
“What was funny is when I first [recorded] it, it was basically just piano with me singing it, and it was terrible,” Giacchino remembers with a laugh. “That’s what they kept using in the [rough cut], and every time I’d hear it, I could not wait to get with the actual singers and do it for real.”
Let Us Be Devoured is another standout track that plays over the end credits. It was written and performed by Giacchino’s longtime collaborator Andrea Datzman. This is a ’60s folk-style ballad that is inspired by the cult of Galactus, a group of fanatics who respond to incoming global destruction with unnerving acceptance.
“They were ready to welcome Galactus and the oblivion that was going to come,” Datzman told Marvel.com. “We had the idea of what that song could be, and we had connected that to the sounds of the 1960s era and Joan Baez.”
“Matt wanted to get this feeling that there were different types of responses to the arrival of Galactus,” Giacchino adds. “One of those responses was a cult of people saying, ‘You know what? Maybe this is what we need. We’re okay with this!’ Andrea took on those songs and really wrote some beautiful stuff.”
In early drafts of the script, a member of the cult sang the song live with a guitar. Ultimately, the scene was just reduced to a brief mention. However, Shakman and the crew couldn’t get Datman’s haunting melody out of their heads. “The song sort of lived on during production,” she says. “So, they decided to put it as an Easter egg in the end-credits.”
The Fantastic Four theme initially debuted at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in August of 2024. Daps Magic was on hand for this magical moment. Giacchino shared how he has been overwhelmed by the response. He hopes that with the accessibility of the soundtrack due to streaming that the score will live on and inspire a whole new generation of Marvel fans. As a kid, Giacchino listened to film scores over and over again as a kid as he imagined the types of stories he might tell one day.
“I’ve seen a lot of the TikTok videos of what people are doing with the theme, and that makes me very happy,” he says with a smile. “It’s so amazing to see people having legitimate fun with this. That is the best thing I could hope for.”
What do you think of the score for The Fantastic Four: First Steps? What is your favorite track? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
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