The Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man trilogy director Jon Watts has explained why he stepped down from The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Watts directed the Spider-Man films Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home, and while he was initially announced to helm the foursome's return to screens, shortly after the release of No Way Home he dropped out.
The director told The Hollywood Reporter that shooting and post-production on the 2021 film was so fraught with difficulty due to pandemic restrictions, he was burnt out.
"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 postproduction process was very difficult," he said.
"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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Although No Way Home released to huge box office numbers and a strong critical reception, the thought of doing another huge superhero movie made him release that he was "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," he added.
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"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."
Matt Shakman, already well-established in the MCU, stepped up to direct the film, and Watts is very excited to see how the film turned out. He did admit, however, that "it's going to be totally surreal experience for me to go and watch that movie."
The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be released in UK cinemas on 24 July and US cinemas on 25 July. A fourth MCU Spider-Man is set to begin filming in just a few months.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
