Summary

• Galactus' size and origin make him a vague force of nature, and hence a difficult character to adapt to live-action.
• The Fantastic Four's Galactus could easily become either too realistic and boring or too fantastical and outlandish.
• The MCU already proved a comic-accurate Galactus can work in Eternals, where the similarly large Celestials posed a threat to Earth and got outsmarted by the human-sized Eternals.

Although The Fantastic Four's Galactus is a challenging character to adapt to the big screen, the MCU already proved a comic-accurate Devourer of Worlds can work perfectly in live-action. Ralph Ineson has joined The Fantastic Four's star-studded cast in the role of Galactus, the potential main villain of the Phase 5 movie. Given The Fantastic Four's retro setting, it's possible that the team's first MCU movie will take place in an alternate universe, and that their battle against Galactus will somehow bring them to the MCU's Earth-616.

In the source material, Galan a.k.a. Galactus is a cosmic entity older than the universe itself, driven to ingest planets by his insatiable hunger. Galactus' true form cannot be comprehended by most beings in the multiverse. Instead, Galactus appears to each civilization as a representation of themselves. Still, the Devourer of Worlds is several times larger than Earth, and he lives in a solar-system-sized base called "the Worldship". Due to his immense proportions and power, Galactus cannot be defeated by regular means. All of these qualities make Galactus a unique antagonist, but also a difficult one to translate to live-action.

Galactus Presents Fantastic Four With A Big Problem

Galactus Is Too Large And Powerful To Be An Actual Character

Galactus' main appeal is his Lovecraftian nature and his immense size, which forces the Fantastic Four and the rest of the Marvel universe to find creative ways to defeat him. After all, not even powerful heroes like Hulk and Thor can simply punch Galactus into submission. However, Galactus is too big and ethereal for live-action. The Devourer of Worlds can't fit in the frame with the Fantastic Four if he stays at his original size, making him a more difficult antagonist to connect with than popular villains like Thanos and the Green Goblin.

Balancing Galactus' size and power with a solid degree of characterization could still be a challenge.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer sidestepped this problem by making Galactus an inanimate cosmic cloud, removing the character's ethereal mystique along the way. While Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer's controversial Galactus was realistic enough, it failed to be a conscious antagonist. The MCU will surely take a more faithful approach to the character in The Fantastic Four, but balancing Galactus' size and power with a solid degree of characterization could still be a challenge.

Eternals Provided The Answer For The Fantastic Four's Galactus Issue

The MCU Already Tested The Waters With The Celestials' Live-Action Introduction

Fortunately for Galactus, the MCU successfully introduced cosmic entities of similar size and origin. Phase 4's Eternals featured the Celestials, who were revealed to have influenced Earth's history and threatened the whole universe with the possibility of their conquest. The Celestials Tiamut and Arishem were also shown to be planet-sized forces of nature that the human-sized Eternals opposed, not unlike the dynamics between the Fantastic Four and Galactus. Taking the Celestials as the basis, The Fantastic Four will go one step beyond and enrich Galactus with Ralph Ineson's voice — and possibly, with his motion-captured performance as well.

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  The Fantastic Four (2025)

  Director

  Matt Shakman

  Release Date

  July 25, 2025

  Writers

  Josh Friedman , Jeff Kaplan , Ian Springer

  Cast

  Pedro Pascal , Vanessa Kirby , Ebon Moss-Bachrach , Joseph Quinn

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  Eternals

  Where to Watch

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  Director

  Chloé Zhao

  Release Date

  November 5, 2021

  Writers

  Matthew K. Firpo , Ryan Firpo , Jack Kirby

  Cast

  Angelina Jolie , Gemma Chan , Richard Madden , Salma Hayek , Kit Harington , Kumail Nanjiani , Lia McHugh , Brian Tyree Henry