Possible Reason Why Marvel is Making ‘The Fantastic Four’ Movie Before X-Men Live-action is More Convoluted Than You’d Think
The Marvel Cinematic Universe entering the scene of live-action comic book movies has definitely been a game-changing affair for the genre. Although the company had the rights to most of the Marvel comic superheroes, by the time started making movies on its own, it had lost the rights to some of the superhero teams to other companies like Sony and 20th Century Fox.
The merger between 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company in 2019 let MCU to welcome some of the superhero characters and teams back into the family. However, so far, out of the popular superhero teams, The Fantastic Four is getting a live-action movie first although fans have been quite excited for the X-Men to make a live-action comeback. This brings everyone to question the studio’s decision to do so.
Why is Marvel Focusing on The Fantastic Four Before the X-Men?
Kevin Feige, President of the MCU, was not very happy about other companies having the rights to Marvel characters as it hindered the company’s control over the superhero teams like Fantastic Four and X-Men. Thankfully, in 2017, The Walt Disney Company announced the acquisition of 21st Century Fox which had the rights to these teams.
In March 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Walt Disney Co. closed its $71.3 billion acquisition of the major entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox. In June 2022, the MCU introduced Ms. Marvel as a mutant and even had Patrick Stewart star as Professor X in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness.
Further, earlier this year, it also brought forth the animated TV series X-Men ’97. Not to mention the upcoming Deadpool and Wolverine movie, but the company is yet to announce a full-fledged X-Men movie. This has made many wonder the possible reason behind this.
In his Patreon Cinema Sangha, journalist Devin Faraci claimed that these delays are due to some Fox contracts that are still applicable.
The reason why is the contractual situation with the original Fox stuff is going to be in effect until 2025. So, if they don’t want to use those actors, then they have to wait until that contract all expires.
The Illuminerdi backed this reason with some research of its own according to which the producers of Fox’s X-Men are also bound by contract, and Marvel will obviously want to start afresh so waiting for the contracts to end seems understandable.
X-Men Might Not Show Up in a Live-action Movie Until Phase 7
While the announcements for The Fantastic Four cast have been made and the movie is well into development, fans of the X-Men would like to know the future of the mutant superhero team. However, according to Faraci, there may not be any such project until 2025 when the Multiverse comes to end.
If they’re going to have stuff hitting in 2025 at the end of the contract, then they’ll announce it. But I think they actually can’t go into production until the contract’s up. So it’s not even a release – it’s the same thing with Superman.
Faraci further claimed that there are chances that besides the selected characters that are showing up in MCU movies, the X-Men team will be introduced in 2025. However, all of this information is to be taken with a grain of salt since there is no official confirmation regarding this.
