Is the official MCU Reed Richards finally cast for the 2025 Fantastic 4 movie reboot? February 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has added William Jackson Harper to the cast in a mysterious role, but is that role actually the MCU Fantastic 4 movie’s Reed Richards?
Is MCU Reed Richards now William Jackson Harper for Fantastic 4?
It is possible The Good Place star William Jackson Harper has been cast as the official Reed Richards for the MCU but it cannot be confirmed right now. Harper has definitely been cast in a Marvel role for next year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and at the moment it has not been revealed who or what he is playing — but Variety reports that the role is a “closely guarded secret.”
This suggests Harper’s character is a person of great interest to fans. It is possible he is the voice or face of MODOK but leaks suggest the villain is played by Corey Stoll. However, William Jackson Harper is a popular fan-cast for Fantastic 4’s Reed Richards. John Krasinski played the alternate-universe Reed in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and he was also a fan casting.
In an interview with NME in July, Harper denied he was cast in Fantastic Four, but he also said that Marvel hadn’t called him — which is now obviously incorrect. As to why Reed Richards would be in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the main villain is Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who in the comics is primarily a Fantastic Four villain.
It remains to be seen if William Jackson Harper is indeed playing Reed Richards, but he’s not the only Fantastic 4 casting rumor at this time. The first Marvel family’s ultimate villain Doctor Doom is rumored to appear in a post-credits scene for November’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. There is a lot of excitement over the Fantastic Four finally appearing in the MCU and Marvel has already started building to the 2025 movie by having Reed in Doctor Strange. As always though, fans will have to wait and speculate for a little while longer.
