20th Century Fox
Earlier today, rumors began to swirl that Fantastic Four was heading home to Marvel Studios and being plugged into one of Marvel’s freshly open, yet to be announced movie slots in 2020.
It’s not true. At least not yet.
In the end, it looks like someone has simply become a little too excited over the recent news that Marvel and Fox struck a deal to put two X-Men universe TV shows into production. The first is Legion, which is being lined up at FX under the guidance of Fargo (TV) creator Noah Hawley. The show will center on the titular character, who is Charles Xavier’s son, a mutant with multiple personalities, all with their own unique sets of powers. He’s like the Magic 8 ball of mutants, only with more crazy. The second is Hellfire, which will spin off some of what we saw in X-Men: First Class. It will be about a federal agent attempting to infiltrate the Hellfire Club in the 1960s.
As Devin Faraci explains over at Birth.Movies.Death, we should not get ahead of ourselves and assume that Marvel and Fox are going to be co-producing X-Men movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe anytime soon:
Both of these shows are happening because Fox was able to strike a deal with Marvel; their ownership of the X-characters extended only to the movies previously. Marvel had to give their blessing and cooperation for this. Some online have decided this means Marvel Studios will be getting the X-Men back for some reason, but if anything this means the opposite – it only solidifies Fox being in the X-game for a long time (and Bryan Singer being along as well, as he’s exec producing both shows). Could Fox have handed something else back, like Fantastic Four? Again, doubtful. This just feels like a money deal from where I’m sitting. Marvel couldn’t really do anything with the X-characters on TV anyway (see the Mutant X lawsuit), so why not take cash from Fox as they try to figure out TV series for these guys?
The hope is that this leads to more talks between the two companies and a deal similar to the one Sony struck earlier this year, bringing Spider-Man into the fold. After the outright failure of Fantastic Four, it’s easy to assume that Fox might be in a position to hand the property back (or at least let Marvel take the lead), there’s a lot of contractual red tape in the way. That said, Marvel does have three open movie slots at the end of its current slate and they will need a plan of some kind for Phase 4. So it’s not impossible, just not true. At least not yet.
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