Rumor: Adam Driver up for Mr. Fantastic

Movies

Is Marvel looking to a galaxy far, far away to cast its First Family? A rumor is circulating that Adam Driver is in the running to play Reed Richards in Fantastic Four. The first to mention it was Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic in October; Sneider downplayed the story, as it came from an unproven source, but he did hear that Driver tested for the role over the summer.

It never gained much traction – I only just heard about it now – but all of a sudden, other sources are reporting it as well. Yesterday, Grace Randolph said that Driver was one of the front-runners for “a certain stretchy role,” and today, The Direct reported that their sources claim he’s a major contender for Mr. Fantastic as well.

I’m pretty okay with Driver being cast. He doesn’t really fit my image of Reed Richards, but he’s a good actor, and I can buy him as the smartest man on Earth (which they’ll be sure to tell us only includes men; otherwise, it would, of course, be Shuri), and he can be commanding enough to make it believable that he can lead around a guy like Ben Grimm. This could go the way of classic MCU casting (is it wrong to call something that began in 2008 “classic”?), with an out-of-left-field actor nailing a role. And Driver deserves something good – assuming this will be good, which, considering Marvel’s recent output, is a big assumption – after being humiliated in Star Wars, which was kind of a bust for everyone involved. Maybe his second shot at a franchise will work out better for him. But he’s been racking up some great performances in the meantime; Marriage Story got a lot of attention (I didn’t see it; I’m sure it’s very well-made, but I don’t really feel like watching people get divorced for two hours), and he was excellent in The Last Duel. And his upcoming sci-fi movie 65 looks great. As much as Marvel has let me down over the past couple of years, I’m interested in seeing how some of these movies pan out, Fantastic Four among them.