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Stan Lee: Marvel ‘Working’ To Get X-Men & Fantastic Four Rights Back
Stan Lee says that fans need not worry as “sooner or later,” the movie rights to all Marvel characters, including the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, will eventually return to Marvel Studios. The mutants and the foursome pioneering property from the famed comic book house are currently under the safe keeping of 20th Century Fox, which has been adapting those comic book series to film for years now. This makes for a great divide between the Fox Marvel Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe where the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and even now Spider-Man operate.
Long before the MCU had become a thing, Fox has already begun creating films based on Marvel characters, starting with the original X-Men trilogy in the early to mid-2000s and followed by their first big screen adaptation of the Fantastic Four in 2005. While the mutants have gone on to do generally well, Fox’s F4 movies have yet to follow suit. All things considered, though, Fox has been doing well for itself in the superhero genre. However, since the boom of the genre and comic book films following the start of the MCU with Iron Man in 2008, fans have started to ponder the possibility that just maybe the MCU & Fox Marvel-verse will crossover one day. Now, Lee, who has great relationships with both film studios, is keeping that hope alive, saying that the much-clamored melding of worlds should eventually happen.
Speaking at the weekend at Wizard World Nashville (h/t Comic Book), the prolific comic book writer has made a bold statement about the X-Men and the Fantastic Four eventually making their way to Marvel Studios:
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Sooner or later, they’re going to get the rights back to all our characters. 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.
Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige has time and time and again stated that at this point, Marvel is not actively pursuing Fox’s Marvel film rights – which make sense, given how full Marvel Studios’ plate already is for the next few years. After wrapping up Phase 3 of the MCU with the still-untitled Avengers 4 in 2019, the studio will immediately kickoff Phase 4 via the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming. Additionally, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is expected to roll out in 2020 and will apparently help to setup the next “10 to 20 years” of MCU films in the process. That being said, Feige had admitted that his long-term goal is to regain the movie rights to all Marvel properties, in order to further allow the MCU to continue expanding and thriving.
If anything, Spider-Man’s current inclusion in the MCU (the result of a deal between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment) is evidence that it is possible that Marvel Studios and Fox will reach a similar agreement concerning the MCU and X-Men/F4 franchises down the line. While it would definitely take a lot of negotiating to ensure that both camps are happy enough to strike a deal, the potential payoff could be very well worth it. In fact, the idea of all Marvel characters finally existing in a single universe on the big screen not only excites fans but even these movies’ own stars – like Ryan Reynolds, who has expressed his desire to see Deadpool interact with the Avengers in a movie some day.
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