Emmy-winning Ozark Actress Julia Garner To Play Silver Surfer In Marvel’s Fantastic Four

Marvel Studios has roped in Emmy-winning actor Julia Garner to play Silver Surfer in its much-awaited Fantastic Four movie. The actress, best known for performances in Ozark, The Americans and the feature film The Assistant, will star alongside Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn in the movie, which Matt Shakman will direct.

Julia Garner joins the ensemble cast of Fantastic Four

According to entertainment news outlet The Hollywood Reporter, Garner's character is called Shalla-Bal, a version of Silver Surfer from the Marvel comics.

The Fantastic Four will mark the entry of the superhero quartet — Pascal's Reed Richards aka Mr Fantastic, Sue Storm aka the Invisible Woman (Kirby), Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch (Quinn), and Moss-Bachrach's Ben Grimm, also known as the Thing — into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), after 20th Century Fox's merger with The Walt Disney Company in 2019.

The Fantastic Four's cinematic journey

The Fantastic Four comics debuted in 1961, with the characters created by Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby becoming one of Marvel Comics' most beloved and important properties.

But the superhero quartet's big-screen history has been a bit of a roller-coaster - from the never-released film produced by Roger Corman in the 1990s, to the middling popcorn fare of 2005's Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer, and, finally, the disappointing 2015 reboot, which officially scrapped plans for more movies.

However, when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, which had owned the rights to the comics, the characters finally became available to Marvel Studios, with Feige teasing that a movie was in the works at the end of Marvel's Hall H presentation at Comic-Con in 2019.

Shakman of WandaVision fame will direct The Fantastic Four from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer. Marvel Studios will release the film on July 25, 2025.

(with inputs from PTI)