Jon Watts, the director best known for Marvel’s Spider-Man films, has said that he quit the forthcoming Fantastic Four movie due to the “emotional strain” and burnout from shooting the superhero films under strict Covid-19 protocols.
Watts was set to direct The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the first film with the characters after Disney acquired Fox, which controlled the rights to the superhero team.
But the director stood down from the project in April 2022, with Marvel president Kevin Feige saying at the time that he was “supportive of his reasons for stepping away”.
At the Mediterrane Film Festival, Watts revealed that the emotional toll of being responsible for the cast and crew’s safety and lives left him exhausted.
“The emotional strain of having to go through all of those Covid protocols while also trying to make something creative while also trying to make sure that your cast and crew were all safe – literally people could’ve died if you did things wrong – that, and the post-production process was very difficult,” he said in a panel during the festival, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Following a group of scientists who develop superhero qualities after they are exposed to a mysterious cosmic storm, The Fantastic Four: First Steps has a star-studded cast that includes Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, and Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch.
British actor Ralph Ineson will play the villain Galactus, while Julia Garner stars as the Silver Surfer.
Watts said he ran “out of gas” while trying to keep up with the filmmaking process with traditional supply chains and processes interrupted due to the pandemic.
“When you’re doing [visual effects work], there’s a whole international component to it where you’re using vendors from all over the world, and the supply chain had been interrupted because of Covid. It was really hard to get effects done in a traditional way.”
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“By the time No Way Home was done and out, I went in to get back into the story for Fantastic Four. I was like, ‘I am out of gas.’ The Covid layer on top of making a giant movie layer, I knew I didn’t have what it would’ve taken to make that movie great. I was just out of steam, so I just needed to take some time to recover.
“Everyone at Marvel totally understood. They had been through it with me as well, so they knew how hard and draining that experience has been; in the end, very satisfying, but at some point, if you can’t do it at the level that you feel like you need to for it to be great, then it’s better to not do it.”
On the Fantastic Four film, now directed by Matt Shakman, Watts said: “I can’t wait to see it, though, I’m very excited to see it.
“It’s going to be a totally surreal experience for me to go and watch that movie.”
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set to be released on 25 July 2025.
