Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards doesn’t lead Avengers in ‘Doomsday,’ actor says

Pedro Pascal sets the record straight on Avengers: Doomsday and who’s leading Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

In a recent interview with Variety, The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman spoke about casting the role of Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, the stretchable man. “He goes from being the nerdy scientist who’s locked away in the lab, to the husband and the father who’d do anything to protect his family, to the guy who’s leading the Avengers,” Shakman told the trade publication. “I realized that the version we were building had to have all of those elements.”

Many fans extracted that quote and spread it around online, believing this meant the star of Eddington, The Materialist, and The Last of Us would become the new leader of the Avengers in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. Pascal clarifies to Entertainment Weekly that is not the case.

“Matt was talking about a Reed Richards that, within the comics of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four are brought into the Avengers and Reed is commissioned to lead a mission, but that is different than what we’re doing,” the actor says. “So I think what Matt has said about Reed and the comic has been taken out of context.”

The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Pascal, Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/the Thing) as Marvel’s First Family. In an alternate reality to the one where the Avengers protect the globe, this super quartet exists as the planet’s sole heroes. With the arrival of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), the herald to the world-devouring space god Galactus (Ralph Ineson), they must fight to keep their family and planet alive.

All four of the main actors will next return for Avengers: Doomsday, which will see former Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. now in the role of Victor Von Doom, one of the most famous villains in the Fantastic Four comics canon.

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In pivoting the direction of the next Avengers movie away from Jonathan Majors’ Kang, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently told press, “We had started to realize that Kang wasn’t big enough, wasn’t Thanos, and that there was only one character that could be that because he was that in the comics for decades and decades. We started talking about Doctor Doom even before we officially pivoted from Kang. In fact, I had started talking with Robert about this audacious idea before Ant-Man 3 even came out.”

The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters this coming weekend. Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled for a Dec. 18, 2026 release.