As the dust begins to settle surrounding yesterday's monumental acquisiton of 20th Century Fox by Disney, we are beginning to have a better idea of how Fox's Marvel properties will be handled going forward, at least in the near future. It is of course obvious that the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool franchises will become a part of the Marvel Studios brand. This will likely happen through either a smooth incorporation of the franchise into the MCU (i.e. Deadpool) or a complete reboot and a reintroduction of characters (i.e. X-Men and Fantastic Four). Now, thanks to a conference call with investors, Bob Iger has made it a bit clearer what will happen in the immediate future with regards to how Disney will handle Fox's Marvel properties .
"
Obviously, Marvel will move under, from a supervisory perspective," with Iger referring to this as allowing for "
cross-pollination opportunities." Referring to
Deadpool,
X-Men, and the
Fantastic Four (as well as
Avatar and the
Planet of the Apes franchises), Iger stated the following: "
How much we will create from that banner is still uncertain. It's going to take a while from a regulatory perspective to continue to develop in that time. In such time as we close this deal and really work carefully at what their slate looks like going forward and how many movies it makes sense to make."
The major takeaway from this news is that Fox's Marvel production will move under Marvel Studios and therefore Kevin Feige, with the latter two functioning in a supervisory role to determine the best options for the properties moving forward. Disney will analyze Marvel projects under both studios and determine the best way to incorporate the newly acquired characters and, possibly in Deadpool's case, films into the MCU. This likely will lead to some big changes to what Fox had previously planned, with some projects (such as Gambit) getting canceled altogether.
Additionally, Disney/Marvel will be working to determine how many movies they plan to release each year going forward, with a possible change in the number of annual MCU movies likely not taking effect until 2019 at the earliest (though we do have Deadpool 2 coming out next year). These are the 6 previously unnamed Marvel-related release dates Fox had claimed, dates that Marvel Studios now has under their belt.
2019: Feb. 14; June 7 ; Nov. 22
2020: March 13; June 26; Oct. 2
Please leave any and all thoughts about Disney/Marvel serving in a supervisory role for the near future and what you think will happen to the previously claimed release dates and possible movies that will be released then with the return of Marvel's X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool characters.
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