Marvel (finally!) announces its ‘Fantastic Four’ cast

Oh boy, it was a big week in pop culture news. A wild new trailer for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Warner Bros. getting ready to send Coyote vs. Acme to the shredder. And (finally!) a Fantastic Four reboot cast. Just a few quick things before we jump into this edition of Popculturology ...

I gotta recommend MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, a newish book from Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards. As you can guess by title, it’s all about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning from before Marvel Studios was even a glint in Kevin Feige’s eye and leading right up to (almost) where we find ourselves today.

I got to give the new Apple Vision Pro a try over the weekend. (You can set up a free 30-minute demo at any Apple Store.) Was I impressed? Yes. Was I $3,500 impressed? No.

The Vision Pro goggles are very cool. The technology is impressive. During my short time wearing them, I often forgot that everything I was seeing — not just the floating windows and videos, but the Apple Store employee sitting next to me, the store or even my hands — was actually video being rendered in real time.

But this is still very much a first-generation product. When Apple Vision Pro is more polished and much cheaper, I’m sure I’ll get one. If I had $3,500 (more when you take into account the prescription lenses and carrying case) to blow on this kind of toy, I’d put it toward a bigger/fancier TV and sound system. You know, things that everyone in your house can enjoy instead of just being strapped onto your face.

If you have the time, I highly recommend doing a demo. The immersive video at the end of it alone is worth your time.

And, yeah, if you wear glasses you’ll need to get prescription inserts. If you’re doing the demo, the Apple Store will do its best to match your prescription with the inserts they have, but if you’re blind like me, you’ll probably be out of luck. The options they had there weren’t strong enough for me, so everything was blurry. (Seriously, the machine that reads your glasses to determine your prescription basically laughed at me and said tough luck. Maybe my prescription isn’t supported at all?) The Apple Vision Pro technology was still impressive enough that I bought into the gimmick while using them. (But perhaps not impressive enough to keep people from returning them?)

The cutest part? An Apple Store team member brings out your demo Apple Vision Pro on a little wooden tray.

Anyone seeing Madame Web this weekend? The film weirdly released on Valentine’s Day and has been ravaged by reviews, including Rolling Stone absolutely lighting Madame Web on fire before slow-motion walking away:

Well, having now seen this tangled-up IP gossamer firsthand, we can say that Madame Web isn’t as bad as its somewhat botched promotional campaign might suggest. It is, in fact, way worse. A genuine Chernobyl-level disaster that seems to get exponentially more radioactive as it goes along, this detour to one of the dustier corners of Marvel’s content farm is a dead end from start to finish.

Congrats, Morbius. You’re no longer the worst movie in Sony’s Spider-Man cinematic universe.

SUPER BOWL TRAILERS

New trailers for Deadpool & Wolverine, Wicked and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes debuted during the Super Bowl last weekend. If you missed my quick recap from Sunday night, check it out below.

🍿🏈🍿 Your Super Bowl MVPs: Trailers for ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ ‘Wicked’ and ‘Planet of the Apes’

While Taylor Swift was chugging beers, we got a bunch of new movie trailers.

PopculturologyBill Kuchman

• 365 million views: Disney announced on Tuesday that the trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine racked up 365 million online views over its first twenty-four hours, making it the most viewed trailer ever. (Deadline)

NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS

Marvel unveils the Fantastic Four cast

At long last, we officially have a Fantastic Four cast. Marvel made the Valentine’s Day announcement that Pedro Pascal will play Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby will play Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn will play Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bachrach will play Ben Grimm.

Pascal is the biggest catch of this cast, already starring in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us. The rest of the Fantastic Four cast is likely familiar to you too, with Kirby having roles in The Crown, the Mission: Impossible franchise and Hobbes & Shaw, Quinn playing the breakout role of Eddie Munson on Stranger Things, and Moss-Bachrach having a pivotal role on The Bear.