The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been going strong for nearly a decade. In the years sinceIron Manwas released, Marvel Studios has done a fine job of getting the rights back to most of their characters, but there are some notable exceptions. Mostly, 20th Century Fox still owns the rights toFantastic Fourand theX-Men. However, according to Stan Lee, Marvel Studios will get the rights back to those characters. Eventually.
As reported byComicbook.com, Stan Lee recently appeared at Wizard World Nashville. While speaking to the crowd, he revealed that, at least as far as he’s concerned,Marvel Studioswill get the rights back toX-MenandFantastic Four"sooner or later." Here’s what he had to say about it.
“Sooner or later, they’re going to get the rights back to all our characters. They’re working on it, and they’re still makingX-Men moviesand 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.”
The 94-year-old Stan Lee, ever the optimist, sounds fairly confident. But he also isn’t necessarily privy to every bit of information when it comes to the inner workings of Marvel Studios. He could just be stating a personal feeling, as opposed to actually having any insider knowledge of the situation. Over the summer,Marvel Studios President Kevin Feigestated that they have “no plans with the Fantastic Four right now. No discussions about it.” He didn’t mentionX-Menat the time, but Fox has found new life with recent hits likeDeadpoolandLogan, so they are much less likely to let those rights go anytime soon.
At one point, Marvel wasn’t in the best place and they decided to license the film rights to many of their characters to various Hollywood studios. Over the years, most of the rights have reverted back to Marvel, butX-MenandFantastic Fourare two of the biggest properties that are still controlled by another studio. That has led to some friction over the years, with Marvel pullingX-MenandFantastic Fourtitles from the comics and doing minimal merchandising for those properties, since it would serve to benefit Fox.
Sony is the other big player as they control the rights toSpider-Manand his rogues gallery. The major difference being that Marvel managed to work out a deal with Sony forSpidey to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, withSpider-Man: Homecomingbecoming a massive hit this summer as a result. Spider-Man is also set to appear in the upcomingAvengers: Infinity Warand the still untitledAvengers 4.
While theX-Men rightsseem far out of reach, Fox has failed repeatedly with theFantastic Fouron the big screen, most famously with 2015’s disastrous reboot. However, the studio reportedly has twoFantastic Fourrelated projects in development, with aDoctor Doommovie in the works and aFantastic Fourmovie that is said to be “kid friendly” and based in part on Mark Millar’sKindergarten Heroes. Despite Kevin Feige’s comments, if one or both of those projects fail, it isn’t hard to imagine Fox making some kind of deal.
