Pedro Pascal Drops Out of Horror Film From Barbarian Director Due to Fantastic Four Commitment

The Last of Us and The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal has reportedly dropped out of Weapons, an upcoming horror film from the director of Barbarian. According to veteran entertainment journalist Jeff Sneider, the move comes as Fantastic Four's production has been pushed into the back half of 2024, creating a scheduling conflict with Weapons. While Marvel has yet to officially confirm it, entertainment industry trades have been reporting for weeks that Pascal will play the role of Reed Richards in the movie. Pascal isn't the first actor to play the character in live action, but will serve as the primary version of Reed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Details about Zach Kregger's Weapons are slim -- that's how the filmmaker wants it -- but when Pascal was cast, to was characterized as "a multi and inter-related story horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson." 

The second season of The Last of Us is set to shoot beginning next month. When Fantastic Four was scheduled for a late spring shoot, Sneider reports Pascal had room in his schedule for Weapons. With Marvel pushing the movie to later in the year, things apparently fell apart.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has recently expanded out into the multiverse, introducing variants of a number of their characters, including Reed Richards, who was played by A Quiet Place's John Krasinski in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Not long after that film's release, Krasinski revealed that he had not been contacted by Marvel to return as the character, suggesting that his turn as Reed was more like simple fanservice. Krasinski and his wife Emily Blunt have been fan-cast to play Reed Richards and Sue Storm for years.

"There are a lot out there, man. They really are. It's pretty crazy," Shakman told ComicBook.com when asked about various casting rumors circulating in February. "As I learned from WandaVision, too, it is so lovely to see the level of engagement that fans have with this material, because I'm a fan too, and I have been reading Fantastic Four since I was a kid. I love these characters. I love the chance that we have to bring them to the MCU and I really want to get it right and I know that everybody out there is really excited and feels passionate in the same way wanting to get it right. And so I encourage it. I think it's great. But yeah, I have no early answers for anyone today about casting."