Welcome to the MCU, Pedro Pascal! Well, kinda. The Last of Us icon is believed to be close to finalizing a deal with Marvel Studios to become cinema’s fourth Mr. Fantastic.
Don’t tell the internet, though, as everyone’s basically already taking it as a done deal. And, in true Marvel fan style, folks are wasting no time in theorizing what casting a man of Pascal’s years — he’s 48 years old, FYI — could mean for the MCU’s depiction of Reed Richards in 2025’s Fantastic Four movie.
Basically, we all know him as Daddy Pedro, but could he soon be Daddy Reed? Thanks to Pascal’s knack for playing father figures, expectations are swelling that Marvel is set to introduce Reed and Sue Storm’s kids, Franklin and Valeria Richards, from the off.
Clearly, Pascal’s Reed would be a veteran hero, so having he and Sue married with children straight away would add up. Even if Marvel ends up casting a much younger actress as his on-screen wife. Hello, Vanessa Kirby.
We’ll get to the Franklin of it all in a moment, but first — given that Valeria was raised by Doctor Doom, her entrance would certainly tie into everyone’s hope for Victor Von D. to make his own MCU debut soon.
As for Franklin… Well, where to begin? Essentially, Franklin is one of the most powerful Marvel characters ever, with reality-warping powers that are off the scale. He’s so OP that it’s difficult to imagine how Marvel Studios would handle him.
Although, given other character adaptations, maybe it’s not that hard.
He could always join Emilia Clarke in the permanent time-out zone for characters who are too powerful to ever appear again once he’s introduced.
The extent of Franklin’s powers being revealed in a post-credits scene has Marvel written all over it.
Given that Franklin’s powers are key to the conclusion of the Secret Wars event in the comics, the odds are looking good that he and his sister Valeria could appear in Fantastic Four, whether Daddy Pedro really is their on-screen daddy or not.
