With all of the obstacles cleared out of the way, it’s now only a matter of time until The Walt Disney Company completes its acquisition of 20th Century Fox’s film and TV assets, meaning that Marvel Studios will soon find itself in control of the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises – which of course includes some of comics’ biggest and best-loved characters.
The general assumption has been that Marvel will look to integrate these characters into its hugely successful Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige previously admitting that he has some “vague ideas” as to how this might be accomplished.
Nevertheless, there has been some speculation that Disney could look to keep the two entities separate, at least initially, particularly with regards to Deadpool, who has proven to be a massive hit for Fox (and whose R-rated sensibilities doesn’t quite match with the family-friendly nature of the MCU).
Well, it seems we can rule that possibility out, with Disney CEO Bob Iger telling THR that: “I think it only makes sense [for Marvel Studios to absorb the Fox characters] I want to be careful here because of what’s been communicated to the Fox folks, but I think they know. It only makes sense for Marvel to be supervised by one entity. There shouldn’t be two Marvels.”
The deal between Disney and Fox isn’t expected to close until the summer of 2019, and Feige has said that he expects it will be a number of years after that before we see the X-Men and the Fantastic Four impacting the MCU. However, as we saw when Spider-Man became available, Marvel can move fast when opportunities arise, so it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if that proves to be the case again here.
