The Fantastic 4: First Steps

FANTASTIC FALLOUT: All the Delicious Real-World Drama Behind The Fantastic 4: First Steps

So you’ve seen the cosmic baby, the giant space god, and the retro suits. Now let’s talk about what you really care about: the touchy co-stars, the casting backlash, the leaked Doom, and the Oscar-nom legend who got snapped out of the MCU like it was nothing.

Cast Chemistry & Touchy-Feely Tour Chaos

• Page Six clocked it first: Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby’s very tactile press tour was branded “oddly intimate” and “very handsy” after multiple clips showed her stroking his face, hugging him from the side with her cheek nearly on his, and the two repeatedly holding hands on camera during First Steps promo stops .
• Fans went feral in the comments with “Why is she rubbing him like that?” and “this is crazy,” while others defended them, suggesting Pascal’s well-known anxiety might explain why he clings to Kirby like an emotional support Sue Storm ^[1].
• Kirby is, crucially, not single: she’s engaged to lacrosse star Paul Rabil (engagement reported December 2024 after about two years of dating) and revealed in May 2025 that she was pregnant with their first child ^[1].
• As extra spice, Pascal had already swatted away separate romance rumors with Jennifer Aniston, calling her a “very good friend,” which only made the new “Vanessa or Jen?” discourse more chaotic ^[1].
• PR experts even chimed in: one Hollywood publicist told Fox News this kind of flirty red-carpet behavior is “nine times out of 10” a deliberate buzz-building tactic to drive clicks and ticket sales for First Steps . Kirby, for her part, framed the viral Comic-Con hand-grab as a sweet “we’re in this together” gesture because they were “incredibly nervous” ^[2].

Scandals & Casting Controversies

• The biggest flashpoint: Julia Garner as a female Silver Surfer. When Marvel revealed she’d be playing Shalla-Bal (a comics character), a chunk of the fandom still screamed “gender swap!” and complained the Surfer “should be a man” .
• Garner’s response? Ice-cold perfection. At the London premiere she shrugged: “I’m just gonna still do my job… Also, it’s Shalla-Bal, so it’s different” ^[5]. She admitted she initially thought “Wait, isn’t the Silver Surfer a man?” before diving into the comics and deciding, simply, “I’ll play anything” ^[10].
• BuzzFeed and Variety both note that once the trailer dropped and people actually saw her in action, a lot of the loudest haters suddenly quieted down and the reaction turned “overwhelmingly positive” ^[5][6]. Her ethereal Surfer voice even blew up on TikTok, spawning a trend she had to learn about secondhand because she doesn’t have the app ^[10].
• Meanwhile, another prestige name wasn’t so lucky: John Malkovich was in the movie… until he wasn’t. He’d filmed scenes as Red Ghost—Soviet mad scientist and early antagonist—only for director Matt Shakman to cut the entire subplot in post. Shakman called it a “heartbreaking” decision, saying the film was already jammed with a retro ‘60s world, pregnancy drama, Galactus and Silver Surfer, and four leads, so “some things had to go” .

Romance Rumors & Off-Screen Love Lives

• Joseph Quinn kept the gossip mill humming when reports surfaced that he’s dating model Amelia Zerbe; a July 2025 Facebook entertainment post claimed “new reports” linked the First Steps star to Zerbe romantically . That followed an earlier wave of speculation after he was seen holding hands with Doja Cat in London in 2024, a situation that escalated into engagement rumors she ended up publicly denying ^[4].
• Vanessa Kirby and fiancé Paul Rabil gave fans the “Sue Storm, but on vacation” soft launch via Instagram, including a romantic West Indies getaway in April 2025 before she revealed her pregnancy ^[4].
• The rest of Marvel’s new family is remarkably stable: Ebon Moss-Bachrach has been with photographer Yelena Yemchuk since the ‘90s, Natasha Lyonne is happily loved-up with filmmaker Bryn Mooser, Julia Garner has been married to Foster the People frontman Mark Foster since 2019, and Ralph Ineson’s long marriage to Ali Ineson even comes with built-in promo—she’s been actively boosting First Steps on social ^[4].

Leaks, Doom & Multiverse Mayhem

• Long before opening weekend was over, insider accounts had already spilled the post‑credits tea. A well-known scooper claimed First Steps has two tags:
• One where Doctor Doom silently appears in Sue Storm’s space, ominously watching baby Franklin. The leak stressed “we don’t see RDJ,” feeding speculation that Robert Downey Jr. might be Marvel’s new Doom even though his face is never shown here .
• A second, lighter tag: an animated, 1960s‑style skit of the Four battling classic villains, leaning into the film’s retro-futuristic vibe ^[7][9].
• Reports also say the Russo Brothers themselves shot the Doom tag, tying it directly into the road toward Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars and confirming Marvel considers this family a key pillar of the next mega-crossover ^[7][9].
• Rumor in fan circles has it that an earlier cut featured Chris Evans returning as Nomad in a post‑credits stinger, but that was allegedly scrapped in favor of the Doom setup ^[7][9]. Unconfirmed, but absolutely catnip for multiverse theorists.

Wild Trivia & Deep-Cut Cameos

• https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9ZN87vV_SII

• Joseph Quinn revealed he and his three co-leads—Pascal, Kirby, and Moss-Bachrach—got matching tattoos to commemorate their time as Marvel’s First Family. In interviews and shorts he proudly shows off the ink, joking about this new “Marvel family” being literally permanent now ^[11].
• In one of the film’s most emotional meta-moments, First Steps brings in the entire main cast of the infamous unreleased 1994 Fantastic Four: Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood, and Michael Bailey Smith all make blink-and-you’ll-miss‑them cameos. Vanity Fair framed it as a 30‑year-old redemption arc for a cast whose movie was buried for legal reasons, finally getting their flowers in the MCU proper .
• Between that, the cut Malkovich villain, and a Doom tag shot by the Russos, the big secret of First Steps isn’t just Galactus—it’s that the movie is basically a Marvel gossip multiverse all by itself.