Marvel’s first family finally joined the MCU in The Fantastic Four: First Steps! After the movie barreled into theaters and the 2025 movie schedule earlier this summer, audiences were treated to a jaw-dropping final act that brought the family of superheroes into a street-level showdown with Galactus as he came for young Franklin Richards. Per co-writer Eric Pearson, though, the battle wasn’t always going to unfold against the backdrop of New York’s skyline. In early drafts, the climax was staged entirely in space—until creative and emotional priorities pushed it down to Earth.
Eric Pearson, one of five credited writers on First Steps, revealed the change in a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter. During that chat, Pearson traced his journey from Marvel’s Writers Program to becoming one of the studio’s most reliable scribes. Over the past 15 years, he’s had a hand in numerous superhero blockbusters, both released and upcoming Marvel movies. With First Steps, though, he says it was his call to pull the climactic battle with Galactus out of space and set it on Earth:
There wasn’t the scale. I want to see him against the Empire State Building. I want to see the Mets’ Stadium. I want to see him kicking buses and stuff like that. So I was like, ‘Let’s bring him down here.’ Then it became obvious that we want Reed and Sue there to have some conflict. And the idea of using their child as bait is logical. Yes, it’s also super fucked up. This family has taken on the burden and responsibility of protecting the entire planet, and now their only option is to do something that is personally very harmful.
I found it interesting to hear that Pearson says the change wasn’t just a matter of trading starfields for skyscrapers, and it makes sense. This was about making the fight feel personal. Dropping Galactus into a world of familiar landmarks and everyday chaos instantly raises the stakes. You can picture the destruction, smell the smoke and feel the panic. And at the center of it all? Reed and Sue’s gut-wrenching decision to use their own child as bait. It’s “super f—ed up,” sure, but it also shows the movie’s team isn’t afraid to dive headfirst into the grayest, most morally complicated corners of superhero storytelling.
The THR profile paints Eric Pearson as a writer who thrives in collaborative, on-the-fly environments, as someone just as comfortable rewriting a scene on set as he is plotting a franchise tentpole in a conference room. His Marvel tenure began with uncredited ADR work on Captain America: The First Avenger, followed by contributions to the Agent Carter One Shot and subsequent Marvel TV series based on Hayley Atwell‘s character.
Pearson made the leap to blockbuster status with Thor: Ragnarok. he then clicked into Marvel’s rhythm with Black Widow and helped shape Thunderbolts* from concept to critical hit.
On First Steps, the Godzilla vs. Kong scribe helped realize a dream tha fans had, as he helped present a more comic-book accurate version of Galactus, played by Ralph Ineson. Even via earlier glimpses of the FF film, the nightmare-inducing size of the “Devourer of Worlds” was very present in the New York shots, and that lent credence to Pearson’s reason for NY being the final battle ground.
All in all, Eric Pearson’s comments reveal a writer invested in the balance between spectacle and humanity. That balance, he believes, is what makes First Steps’ grounded finale work—because it’s not just about saving the world, it’s about the gut-punch choices heroes have to live with afterward.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is playing in theaters now. Be sure to check your local listings, and grab a Disney+ subscription to stream other MCU fare.
