The big news in media today is that Disney has agreed to purchase 21st Century Fox, birthing an absolutely massive content behemoth with a frankly staggering number of cinematic properties under one roof. That’s because if this deal goes through – which is by no means guaranteed – then the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises will be back in the hands of Marvel.
Long before the stratospheric success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the famed comic book company was in the doldrums when it came to adapting their properties for the screen. In the late 90s they sold off the rights to many of their biggest properties, like Spider-Man to Sony and the X-Men and Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox. Fast forward to the 2010s, and Disney-controlled Marvel Studios is printing money with what has proven to be an uncatchable unicorn for the rest of the film industry: a coherent cinematic universe.
Marvel somehow managed to build the most successful film franchise of all time on the back of B-list characters. Let’s be real: if you told someone back in the 90s that a Thor movie would be one of the most beloved and highest-grossing films of the year in 2017, they’d laugh you out of the room. But once they’d built something massive and successful, they obviously wanted all their heavy-hitters back. They managed to bring Spider-Man into the MCU only after striking a deal with Sony following the humdrum critical and commercial performance of the Amazing Spider-Man franchise.
This Disney-21st Century Fox deal means that they’ve got their hands on the Fantastic Four and the X-Men – and Deadpool by extension. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has reportedly been absolutely stinging to get his hands on these characters, and now it looks like he’ll get his wish. But what will that look like?
It’s a little bit of a mess, honestly! The X-Men film series over at Fox has been a minefield of solid comic book movies with a handful of real stinkers liberally spread throughout. Some characters have become pretty iconic in their Fox incarnations, like Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine. And as good as it could sometimes be, it’s pretty incoherent at times. Where does Logan fit into the wider franchise? Is Deadpool fully integrated into the cinematic world of X-Men? Who knows!
If Marvel and Disney pull the same move as they did with Spider-Man: Homecoming, then we could be in for a total reboot of the X-Men franchise, totally integrated into the MCU. In fact, that’s almost certainly the only way they can do it. There’s no feasible way to integrate the X-Men franchise as it exists – with all its time travel and historical fuckery – into the MCU without causing serious teething problems.
But it’s still kind of problematic even if they start again. The central thesis of the X-Men series is that the heroes and villains are mutants – several of many thousands of people across the world who are born with powers. It’ll be tough to bring that into the MCU, which has existed for nearly a decade without the barest mention of mutants. They won’t be able to say “Oh hey! All these people exist, btw.”
The Fantastic Four will be much easier, because you can just reboot them and their origin stories into the existing MCU timeline. No biggie. The only issue is that this’ll be the third incarnation of the franchise in just over a decade but that didn’t stop them with Spider-Man.
And if you’re afraid Disney’s going to strip all your favourite swears and anal sex jokes out of Deadpool, you’re probably safe. Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a conference call with investors that they don’t see any issues, and in fact see the potential for an R-rated Marvel brand under their roof. “It [Deadpool] clearly has been and will be Marvel branded. But we think there might be an opportunity for a Marvel-R brand for something like Deadpool,” Iger said.
One thing worth getting excited about: this kinda solves Marvel’s looming villain problem. Let’s be real: the current villains in the MCU aren’t necessarily the ones you think of when you think of Marvel. Loki and Thanos are fine – but they weren’t really iconic in the broader culture until the MCU. Now they’ve got their hands on probably the three most iconic villains in all of Marvel: Magneto, Galactus, and Dr. Doom. That gives them a lot more leeway going into Phase Four of their cinematic universe and beyond.
So is this actually happening? Yes – unless federal regulators over in the United States decide that it shouldn’t. But even if it does successfully go through, we’re talking about the merger of two gigantic media companies. This will be a slow and painful process taking at least a year. So don’t expect Wolverine slicing shit up with the Avengers anytime soon. But it’s pretty likely it’s on the way.
