Back in December it was revealed that The Walt Disney Company is in the process of acquiring the film and TV assets of 21st Century Fox, which means that – should the deal go through – the rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises will return to Marvel, opening the door for the various comic book characters to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
With the deal not expected to be finalised and approved until mid-2019, the official line from both parties so far has been that it is “business as usual”, and “we’ll deal with it once it’s official”. However, according to a report from Comic Genre (via Bleeding Cool), it seems that both Fox and Marvel have already laid out how they plan to handle the acquisition.
The outlet reports that a number of high-level Fox production crew members attended a college speaking engagement, where it was revealed that X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be the last Fox Marvel movie, and that everything will then move across to Disney and Marvel. Apparently, Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige is “hoovering up” all of the Fox/Marvel characters, and intends on inserting the X-Men, Deadpool and the Fantastic Four into Phase Four of the MCU.
Given that Dark Phoenix is set for release in February 2019, the report – if accurate – raises questions about the status of The New Mutants, which was recently pushed back to August 2019 as Fox plans on reshooting around half of the movie.
Similarly, it’s also unclear what will happen to X-Force (which is apparently due to go into production later this year), as well as the long-gestating Gambit (which, let’s face it, is never happening anyway), not to mention the likes of the Doctor Doom, X-23, Kitty Pryde and Multiple Man films that have been announced as late. One would have to assume that Fox wouldn’t be wasting its time and money if these movies are never going to see the light of day.
And as for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it would appear that Phase Four is going to be pretty stacked if Marvel Studios intends on introducing all of those new characters alongside its Spider-Man: Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther sequels, and a new wave of cosmic properties.
