Did Disney get the rights to the Fantastic Four back from Fox, and will they make an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe during or after Avengers: Infinity War?
It’s possible, and a few of the post-credits scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 might’ve tipped Marvel Studios’ hand.
A Brief History of Disney vs. Fox
Long ago in a decade far, far away (the early 1990s) Marvel was not owned by the Walt Disney Company and was on the verge of bankruptcy. To help pull themselves out of that tailspin, they sold off the movie rights to several of their most popular titles — Spider-Man, X-Men, Ghost Rider, Daredevil and, yes, The Fantastic Four.
Sony acquired the rights to Spider-Man, and they produced three movies with Sam Raimi as director. They then tried to reboot the films with the Amazing Spider-Man series and it, well, fell flat. Disney/Marvel were able to work out a deal to allow Spider-Man (now Tom Holland) to take his place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe beginning with Captain America: Civil War, and continuing in Spider-Man: Homecoming. (Homecoming? Get it? Because Spidey is “home” with Marvel now.)
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After a few terrible movies, the rights to Ghost Rider and Daredevil returned to Marvel. Ghost Rider made an appearance in the MCU on Agents of SHIELD, and Daredevil, of course, got his own series on Netflix.
X-Men, of course, wound up at Fox and the Brian Singer film helped jumpstart the “superhero movie bubble” that still exists today. The X-Men films have been terribly successful for Fox for many years, including recent entries Logan and Deadpool. Marvel will have to pry the rights to the X-Men universe out of Fox’s cold dead hands.
The Fantastic Four were another story entirely. Also with Fox, two lackluster movies were produced in the late 00s (which starred Chris Evans pre-Captain America as The Human Torch) and a recent reboot landed with a colossal thud.
Supposedly Disney/Marvel has tried on several occasions to get both the rights to X-Men and the Fantastic Four back so there could be one big happy Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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Again, the X-Men are crazy successful and there’s a snowball’s chance. But did Fox finally relinquish the rights to the Fantastic Four, since they clearly have no idea how to successfully handle the franchise?
The Evidence…
“I’ll trade you David Haller for Reed Richards.”
Last year, Cinema Blend pointed to the fact that Marvel is allowing Fox to develop X-Men TV series, starting with Legion.
You see, TV was always off the table. Marvel would need something mighty good to relinquish the TV rights to X-Men.
Like, maybe, the film rights to The Fantastic Four?
Spoilers?
There are three as-of-yet unnamed Marvel Studios movies slated for 2020. Now, knowing how far out Disney announces its movies and that the dates are already set, it’s odd that these films have not been named yet.
Unless they’re hiding something.
Could the aftermath of Avengers: Infinity War include the introduction of the Fantastic Four, with them getting their own film in 2020? Could another film be of the Silver Surfer?
We’ve already seen Fantastic Four characters in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’… and we shouldn’t have.
The mid-credits scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were pretty interesting for comics fans.
One scene involved showing us the cocoon of “Adam.” Adam, of course, is Adam Warlock — a gold-skinned intergalactic superhero who is instrumental in defeating Thanos in The Infinity Gauntlet storyline. That classic storyline, of course, is the basis for Avengers: Infinity War.
But here’s the thing. Adam Warlock was introduced in the pages of… The Fantastic Four! Issue #66 to be precise.
Meaning that film rights to that character could likely “belong” to Fox, just as other ancillary Fantastic Four characters like the Silver Surfer and Galactus do. Unless Marvel got them back.
Want more fuel for this rumormongering dumpster fire? OK, remember those big tall bald dudes Stan Lee was hanging with post-credits? Those guys were called The Watchers. And you know what? They were also introduced in the pages of The Fantastic Four.
Just sayin… it’s odd.
Now, it’s completely possible that both Marvel and Fox can use certain characters in a “gray area,” as they did with Quicksilver (a version of that character was in both Avengers: Age of Ultron and X-Men:Days of Future Past). But I’m not so sure Marvel would deliberately “go there” unless they knew they had a legal leg to stand on.
The MCU in Spaaaaaaace!
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is definitely going all spacey on us. Just watch the trailer for Thor: Ragnarok. Obviously this is in preparation for Avengers: Infinity War. But the characters most associated with “cosmic” Marvel stories were The Fantastic Four, or characters introduced in their storylines such as the Silver Surfer. It would be odd to introduce all of those far out concepts only to exclude the team who most often encountered them first.
Leggo my Ego
Ego is a living planet. Galactus (a major baddie introduced in the Fantastic Four and handled badly in the second Fox movie) eats planets. These two don’t get along and have had many skirmishes over the past few decades. Granted, MCU Ego was apparently killed off… but Marvel characters seldom stay dead. Ego was an odd choice to include in an MCU movie this early on. Could Marvel have plans for Ego vs. Galactus in the future?
So, is this a thing?
I think it’s possible that Disney/Marvel did get the rights back from Fox, regardless of what their spokespeople say. Disney doesn’t announce anything before they’re ready to, and the ink might not even be dry on whatever papers have been drawn up.
I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, this one has about a 7 of being true.
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The Watchers are jointly owned by Fox and Marvel and thus no permission was required to do these scenes. Don’t read too much into it.
I did see that Slashfilm (I believe) did an interview with Kevin Feige a few days ago where he clarified who owns what. So, debunked?
I do think it’s a matter of time until all the Marvel IP comes back to the Mouse House. Money talks, and Disney has an awful lot of it these days…
X-Men will not be coming back. As Logan showed, X-Men are still a very profitable property for Fox. Besides, Marvel really doesn’t need them. They have more than enough properties still to develop. Fantastic Four is a different matter. The first two movies were watchable and did make a small amount of money. However, the last one was a disaster, both critically and financially, losing over $100 million dollars. Simon Kinberg keeps stating he wants to continue with this cast, hoping for a better story as a way to make FF financially successful. They have until 2022 to develop and release a new movie, so, there’s time. But, who knows what will happen.
This is so much bull****. If Disney *had the rights* they would have announced them the second they got them, like with Spider-Man. Black Panther also premiered in the Fantastic Four, and Fox definitely doesn’t have the rights to him.
There’s also no way Fox would give up all rights to the Fantastic Four to make *one* X-Men show. They wouldn’t give up Galactus and Silver Surfer for Daredevil, no way do they give up all of it for ****** Legion.