Before Matt Shakman took over directing duties for the MCU’s first Fantastic Four movie, Jon Watts was in charge. The director of the Spider-Man: Home trilogy dropped out in 2022, and his reasons for leaving are completely valid: he had to take a much-needed break.

During a recent storytelling class at the Mediterrane Film Festival, Watts revealed he was basically “out of gas” by the time he was wrapping Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was shot in the early days of the pandemic. Following the numerous Covid protocols back then and “trying to make something creative while also trying to make sure that your cast and crew were all safe…was very difficult,” he recalled. Further strain came during postproduction—the supply chain of international VFX vendors suddenly became “interrupted,” which made it difficult “to get effects done in a traditional way.”

“I knew I didn’t have what it would’ve taken to make Fantastic Four great. I was just out of steam,” admitted Watts. He commended Marvel for letting him walk away, and noted making big movies like theirs can be “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.” He went on to direct the much smaller Wolfs starring only a handful of actors, then co-created Star Wars: Skeleton Crew with Chris Ford.

Watts has every intention of seeing Fantastic Four: First Steps when it hits on July 25, but he was honest in calling it “totally surreal experience for me to go and watch that movie.”

[via The Hollywood Reporter]

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