If you ever glanced at Marvel fans on Twitter, you might’ve noticed many love the idea of real-life power couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt starring in Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. And while fans can always have their dream castings, it doesn’t mean Marvel Studios or Disney have made any overtures—or that they’ll necessarily be well-received.
Take Blunt’s latest reaction to fan casting rumors when the prospect of playing Marvel Studios’ version of Sue Storm was brought up on The Howard Stern Show. Blunt has commented before on the rumors—she told Den of Geek just last year that “it’s all hypothetical” and “until it’s real, I don’t even think about it”—but in 2021 she is even firmer on the fact that she hasn’t heard anything from Marvel, and at the moment she has little interest in the superhero genre.
“That is fan-casting,” Blunt said. “No one has received a phone call. That’s just people saying, ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’”
She goes on to add that while she does not think superhero movies are beneath her, she doesn’t necessarily want to be in them. She was famously cast as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 in 2009 before she had to drop out of the movie due to scheduling conflicts. As a consequence, Scarlett Johansson stepped in and of course went on to play Natasha Romanoff for more than a decade, culminating in this year’s Black Widow movie. However, Blunt does not appear to have hard feelings given the oversaturated landscape of capes and cowls that followed what was once a novelty in the original Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Iron Man (2008).
“I love Iron Man and I when I got offered Black Widow, I was obsessed with Iron Man,” Blunt said. “I wanted to work with Robert Downey Jr. It would’ve been amazing. But I don’t know if superhero movies are for me. They’re not up my alley. I don’t like them. I really don’t.”
Admitting some superhero movies have left her feeling a bit cold, she goes on to add, “It’s been exhausted. We are inundated—it’s not only all the movies, it’s the endless TV shows as well. It’s not to say that I’d never want to pay one, it would just have to be something so cool and like a really cool character, and then I’d be interested.’
It’s an honest, candid answer, and one that’s also fairly refreshing. With the self-awareness to realize he works at Den of Geek, this writer has also noticed the culling effect Hollywood’s quest to produce ever more expensive, recycled intellectual property (IP) has had on the other types of movies that get made. Or don’t. This is not necessarily a singular criticism of Marvel, but accompanying the studio’s remarkable quality control over their output is also a hegemonic quality which gives most of their films a sameness that could be stifling to plenty of creative talents.
If Blunt is one such person, her wishing not to participate in a decade-long endeavor that attempts to further blur the lines between film and now television on Disney+, until all that is left is an endless stream of content, makes sense. Galactus knows the assembly line will not be closed for business, even if this particular bit of fan casting is.
For whatever it’s worth though, the last time Krasinski was asked about Marvel, he said, “I would love to be in the Marvel Universe.” So that bit off fan-casting hope for Mr. Fantastic seems less of a stretch.