The Fantastic Four: First Steps Poster Mistake Has Everyone's Attention For All The Wrong Reasons

The teaser trailer for "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" has earned near-universal praise. The same cannot be said about the film's new posters. Four images released on the Marvel movie's social media pages attracted criticism for noteworthy visual errors and speculation about the usage of generative AI in their production. A studio spokesperson has told The Hollywood Reporter that AI was not used for these posters — though many remain unconvinced by this statement.

One common strategy to identify if an image is AI-generated or not involves counting the fingers on people's hands. Image generators are notoriously bad at hands. In the social media poster showing a crowd of people cheering, the hand waving the leftmost blue flag has only three fingers and a thumb. In that same poster, the same glasses-wearing old woman appears multiple times — though that mistake could be the result of standard photo editing rather than anything AI-based. Other odd details — like the nonsensical "We 4 You" sign and the off-model tiny head on a Thing toy in another poster — have also raised alarm bells about something being just a bit off.

If we're to take the Marvel representative at their word, even the number of fingers could be just a photo-editing mistake. However, The Hollywood Reporter piece doesn't include the rep's exact wording, and sometimes specific language is everything in knowing if or how AI was used. See the controversy over "The Brutalist," which allegedly used AI to generate some architectural images — different sources involved in the production have described the process differently. There is also the possibility that AI-generated elements made it into the posters without the studio knowing. Adobe has been adding AI features to traditional editing software like Photoshop, so some combination of photography, human artistry, and AI generation could easily result in images like these.

If you keep up to date with all things Marvel Studios, then you'll know that this is not the first time the Hollywood powerhouse has been caught up in an AI controversy. The studio used AI animation for the highly divisive title sequence of "Secret Invasion," which didn't go down well with a lot of fans. Method Studios, the VFX company behind the intro, was quick to point out that "no artists' jobs were replaced by incorporating these new tools" in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter following the backlash.

"Secret Invasion" director and executive producer Ali Selim claimed that they went down the AI route because it fit with the themes of the show. "When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it — it just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know? Who did this? Who is this?" Selim explained to Polygon. "We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something. And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change."

Fans also noticed what they believed to be an AI-generated stock image in a poster for "Loki" Season 2, but this was debunked. "The artist used a software tool to create the Droste Effect responsible for the subtle creative imperfections most often associated with AI generated art," Shutterstock said in a statement to The Verge. A poster for "Thunderbolts*" was also scrutinised because of what appears to be an extra finger on Bob (Lewis Pullman), though this is apparently an optical illusion caused by the way the image was cropped. Could the "First Steps" finger fiasco also be an optical illusion? It's not impossible, but as the hand in question is nowhere near the edge of the image, the crop excuse doesn't work here.

The posters for "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" clearly drew aesthetic inspiration from the artwork of Alex Ross. Ross is celebrated for his realistic gouache paintings of classic superheroes. He's best known for illustrating the 1994 Marvel Comics miniseries "Marvels" and the 1996 DC miniseries "Kingdom Come" (which James Gunn's upcoming "Superman" pays homage to in its costuming). More recently, Ross was the writer and illustrator of the 2022 graphic novel "Fantastic Four: Full Circle." If the "First Steps" posters were indeed generated with AI as people believe, it seems likely that "Alex Ross" was one of the prompts used. The Ross connection might go even further than just the visual style, as some fans are speculating that one of the photographers in the crowd poster is Philip Sheldon from "Marvels."

Whether or not it turns out these posters used AI, one thing the fans criticizing them agree on is that an actual Alex Ross-painted poster would have looked so much better than these homages of questionable quality. TV editor Jonathan Kramer ("The Eric Andre Show") posted on Bluesky, "Alex Ross is out there doing some of his best work in yeeeaars on Fantastic Four covers and they churn out this boring ass AI s*** so that 5 levels of lazy creative directors and VPs can note it to f***ing death." Video game artist Fellipe Martins wrote, "Alex Ross would've painted a masterpiece for the ages," while calling the crowd poster a "disrespectful, sloppy mess."

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" opens in theaters on July 25, 2025. Hopefully, the film itself is AI-free.