Picture this. Its early 2014, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier has just wowed critics and audiences with how far the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come. Meanwhile, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits theaters and (putting it nicely) a mess Sony slapped together in order to forcefully start their own cinematic universe. Nobody would've thought just three years later, that whole planned Sony universe would be history, and instead the Spider-Man character would be making his appearance in Infinity War. Well if you thought that was hard to believe, imagine the same happening to the current Fox X-Men and Fantastic Four universes. As hard as it might be to wrap your head around the once thought to be impossible scenario, it might just happen.
Just a few weeks ago, word broke that now struggling 20th Century Fox studio was up for sell. As the past has taught us with studios such as LucasFilm and Marvel Studios, Disney is more then keen of the idea of bringing even more properties under their belt. By the time the news broke though, the two studios had apparently stopped talking after not being able to settle on a deal. This made the entire idea of Marvel reacquiring pretty much the only characters who they don't currently own the rights to seem like a dream what-if scenario.
But according to Deadline's latest report, the possibility of seeing Wolverine stand side by side with Spider-Man and Iron Man (That is if one of them doesn't die in Infinity War) is back on the table. The Wallstreet Journal have stated that the only other serious competition Disney has in buying the company is Comcast, but that talks with the latter are starting to hit up. Whoever reaches the deal will be purchasing 20th Century Fox's TV and movie studios and more, which come out to an estimated worth of $48.5 billion. Sony and Verizon were also apparently contenders, but it seems more likely the House of Mouse will be the company willing the churn up that kind of dough. The Murdochs who own the company apparently want to reach a deal by the end of the year, which my accelerate things.
Now that I've gotten all the business and logistics talk out of the way, lets get to the part that us comic book fans really care about, what does this mean for the movies. Well right now several projects are already in the works at Fox including X-Men: Dark Phoenix, New Mutants, and Deadpool 2. All these films don't exactly seem up Disney's alley but will be released by Fox regardless, but this will certainly effect any movie that Fox has planned beyond that. We can assume Disney would want to incorporate these characters into the MCU as soon as they can, and the only way to do that would be by rebooting them like they did with Spider-Man.
While this is all hypothetical right now, its interesting to speculate what would happen to all these properties in the hands of Disney, and whether its actually whats best for these characters. I think we can all agree Fox has already failed with Fantastic Four twice and is all but out of chances and ideas, so those characters would better off at Marvel. But the X-Men films despite their messy timelines have really had some great adaptions and casting choices, especially in the last few years. Rebooting would mean giving all that up, but with our reward being getting to finally see them interact with other Marvel characters (And hopefully in their actual costumes). Deadpool is probably the character most at risk, as those films have been given so much freedom and lack of censorship that I just can't see happening under the watchful eyes of the Disney heads.
So what do you think of the possibility of Disney landing a deal with Fox? Would you like to see the X-Men and Fantastic Four in the MCU, or do you prefer them in the hands of Fox? Let us know below!
