Matt Shakman

From the Child Set to the Director's Chair

Matt Shakman started in front of the camera before turning ten. In 1988, he played Graham Lubbock Jr. on the series Just the Ten of Us. That experience as a child actor in the 1980s gave him a technical understanding of television pacing that few directors of his generation share.

After studying at Yale University, he decided his place was behind the lens. He founded the Black Dahlia Theatre in Los Angeles, where he learned to direct actors in tight spaces. He directed more than forty stage productions before television drew his attention back.

Theater was his true school.

In the early 2000s he began racking up episodes across all kinds of series. He worked on Six Feet Under and The Good Wife, but his real training ground was comedy. In 2007 he joined the team of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and ended up directing 43 episodes of the series.

The Rhythm of Black Comedy

That stint in cult comedy allowed him to experiment with tight budgets and punishing deadlines. Shakman learned to shoot quickly without sacrificing staging. But his interest went beyond laughs, and he sought projects with greater dramatic weight.

In 2017, he was assigned to direct the fourth episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones. That episode featured one of the series' most complex battles, with dragons and hundreds of extras on fire. The technical precision of the shoot put him on the radar of major Hollywood studios.

And the gamble paid off.

Shortly after, he directed episodes of Succession in 2019 and The Great in 2020. His style moved away from personal flair and focused instead on the narrative and tone of each project. So when Marvel was looking for someone who could blend the aesthetics of classic comedies with superhero cinema, his name was the first on the list.

The Leap to an Unlimited Budget

In 2021, he directed all nine episodes of WandaVision. The series required recreating decades of television history with obsessive attention to detail. Shakman used vintage lenses and had the crew study the filming techniques of the 1950s for the first episodes.

The success of the project let him choose his next big step. After leaving the project for a new Star Trek movie in 2022, he took on the challenge of relaunching the first family of superheroes. In 2025, he took over directing The Fantastic Four for Disney studios.

She isn't after easy applause.

His working method prioritizes digital previsualization and rehearsal with the actors ahead of time. In 2024 he oversaw the construction of the sets at Pinewood Studios in London under strict safety measures. Principal photography was scheduled for that summer, using digital IMAX cameras.