After the smooth transition of Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hopes are sky-high for the Sony/Marvel collaborative reboot of the beloved character. Sony tried not, but twice to build a franchise for Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire and later Andrew Garfield, before scrapping plans and agreeing to share rights to the character with Marvel Studios, thus paving the way for the web-slinging superhero to appear in Captain America: Civil War.
Furthermore, for the Tom Holland-starring reboot titled Spider-Man: Homecoming, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige has complete creative control over the character reports Squareeyed.tv, with Sony sharing the profits the film will make. Spider-Man was lauded as one of the finest aspects of Civil War and the apparent immediate benefits of sharing the rights for the character may have made 20th Century Fox —who currently own the rights to X-Men— to sit up and re-evaluate their plans moving forward.
Interestingly, according to Marvel Movie News host Matthew Key, the studios have held tentative discussions with the view of perhaps sharing the rights to the characters owned by Fox.
“I’ve heard from my sources that Marvel and Fox have [kind of] talked about it [sharing the rights to the X-Men characters],” Key said while appearing on Collider Heroes.
“‘Ooh what you did with Sony and Spider-Man is actually pretty cool. However, we’re years away from that happening,” he added.
While we definitely shouldn’t expect an announcement of Fox and Marvel sharing the rights to characters like Wolverine, Magneto and Deadpool anytime soon, it’s encouraging to know that discussions have been held and that the ball has started rolling, ever so slightly.
However, appearing on the same show, Collider.com Editor-in-chief Steve Weintraub revealed that his sources have hinted at Fox focusing on a future of Deadpool, X-Force and New Mutants, with no further X-Men films planned.
“I think they’re all in on going Deadpool 2, X-Force and New Mutants,” he said.
“I think even though X-Men: Apocalypse made $500 million worldwide, there’s serious audience fatigue with these characters and the stories so they’re realising they need to something different, because that’s the key.”
Some interesting comments there for us to digest. Essentially, it’s important not to conclude that a Fox/Marvel sharing characters announcement is definitely not imminent. Judging from Key’s comments, Fox may well wait to see how Spider-Man: Homecoming fares before they jump into concrete negotiations. If Homecoming is a critical and commercial smash-hit, it may pique Fox’s interest into entering a similar deal that brought Spider-Man home to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Watch the discussion on Collider Heroes below. The Fox/Marvel stuff starts at around 1:18:00. We’re not going to lie, the idea of having the X-Men in the MCU is exciting!
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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