Many fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are longing for the day when all of the publisher’s characters are back under the control of Marvel Studios, finally allowing the MCU to replicate the full Marvel universe of the comic books.
Marvel managed to bring the wall-crawler back home by cutting a deal with Sony to use Spider-Man within the MCU, leading to a lot of speculation that a similar arrangement could be worked out with Fox for the X-Men and Fantastic Four.
Although Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has dismissed this possibility on a number of occasions, most recently back in June following the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, comic book legend Stan Lee remains optimistic that all of the characters will find themselves back under the same roof one day, even claiming that Marvel is actively working on achieving that goal.
“Sooner or later, they’re going to get the rights back to all our characters,” said Lee at Wizard World Nashville (via Comic Book). “They’re working on it, and they’re still making X-Men movies and stuff. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get more Marvel superheroes than you’ll have time to look at in the next few years.”
Now, it’s entirely possible that this is just wishful thinking and speculation on Lee’s part; given that Fox has plenty of plans for the X-Men franchise – including the upcoming Deadpool 2, X-Men: The New Mutants, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, X-Force and Gambit – it would seem very unlikely that the studio will be giving up on its mutant superhero cash cow any time soon.
The utter failure of Fox’s last Fantastic Four movie did raise hopes of Marvel’s First Family heading back to Marvel, although Fox has since announced a Doctor Doom solo movie, and is reportedly working on a “kid-friendly” reboot, so it would seem the FF are also off the table for the time being. Of course, if both of those projects fail to materialise (or fail at the box office), then the MCU would surely be the only viable destination for Reed Richards and company.
Originally published September 14, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
