Original Fantastic Four Stars Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd Want In on Avengers: Secret Wars — Is It Clobberin’ Time?

Say what you want about the 2000s Fantastic Four movies, but the casting wasn’t the problem. And thanks to the MCU’s multiverse playground, the door is wide open for a comeback. Ioan Gruffudd and Michael Chiklis sure seem ready to walk through it.

Gruffudd and Chiklis are game to return

At New York Comic Con on Oct 9, 2025, the original Mister Fantastic and The Thing made it clear they’d pick up the phone if Kevin Feige called about Avengers: Secret Wars. Chiklis even dropped the line you want him to drop to a cheering crowd, per Variety: 'It’s clobberin' time.'

Why this suddenly feels possible

Between Deadpool and Wolverine turning into a reunion machine (yes, including Chris Evans’ Johnny Storm) and the MCU leaning hard into multiverse detours, any past Marvel actor now has a shot at redemption. Secret Wars is positioned to be the ultimate crossover cleanup crew.

What’s cooking behind the scenes

The Secret Wars prelude, Avengers: Doomsday, is already filming. As usual with the big Marvel stuff, details are locked down, but expect some time-tangling nonsense. Patrick Stewart, Alan Cumming, and other veterans from the original X-Men trilogy are confirmed to be involved. Translation: legacy faces are very much on the menu.

Quick refresher on this Fantastic Four lineage

• Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards) and Michael Chiklis (Ben Grimm) led the 2005 Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer.
• Those roles have been recast twice since, or three times if you count John Krasinski’s Reed cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
• The 2000s films didn’t land great at the time, but nostalgia has kicked in, helped by Deadpool 3 closing with a sentimental montage of behind-the-scenes footage from those Fantastic Four movies and the first three X-Men entries.

Gruffudd on the ride so far

Gruffudd talked about making those movies back before Robert Downey Jr. rewired what being a Marvel headliner meant. The way he describes it, the whole thing was a whirlwind:

'The blood, sweat and tears that went into making the movies, then you get to see it all up on the big screen, and all the work that was done after the movie was shot, and then to promote it. It was just a wild ride.'

So... will they be back?

No promises. But with Doomsday rolling cameras, Secret Wars looming, and Marvel actively pulling past eras back into the fold, the odds are better than they’ve been in years. If Feige wants to give that 2000s team another swing, Gruffudd and Chiklis sound ready to suit up.