Marvel Has Plans For If It Gets The X-Men Or Fantastic Four Rights Back
Marvel president Kevin Fiege has revealed that there are contingency plans in place should they ever regain the rights to key Marvel characters - such as the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
While Feige doesn’t specifically name those two properties - the rights for which currently rest with 20th Century Fox - those are the only major names left out of the reach of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.
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At an event marking the release of ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Feige was asked by Slash Film’s Peter Sciretta about how they went about introducing a character, like Spider-Man, whom they wouldn’t reasonably assume they’d get the rights to.
“The short answer is: the most important thing is the standalone movie, relaunching 'Spider-Man’ with a standalone movie with a new storyline that fits into this universe – that’s job number one for us.
"The connectivity [with other Marvel films] is great but it doesn’t drive the train. That being said, if I understand what you’re asking, we had… this has been a dream of ours for a long time, and we always had contingency plans should you know — which we always do anyways. Are we going to be able to make another movie with this actor? If we are then we’ll do this, if not, we’re going to do this. If we get the rights to a certain character that’d be great, then we’d do this, if not, we’d do this. So we always sort of operate with those alternate timelines available and are ready to shift if something happens.”
The insinuation is that they have at least a vague idea of how they might introduce certain characters if they get the rights back. The existing examples would be Spider-Man, Daredevil and Punisher - whose rights either expired, or in the case of Spidey, the studio holding those rights engineered a plan with Marvel to bring the character into the Marvel fold.
The onky major characters left out of Marvel’s reach are the X-Men - who have rich potential for numerous films and solo character movies - and Fantastic Four - who are unlikely to get another blockbuster film for a long time but who do come with a potentially fantastic villain in Doctor Doom (below), who would work well with other characters.
Feige was also asked about whether they know the plan for the remaining Marvel films, up until 'Avengers: Infinity War - Part 2’ and 'Inhumans’ in 2019. He said: “Yes, in broad strokes. Sometimes in super specific things, but for the most part in broad strokes that are broad enough and loose enough that if through the development of four or five movies before we get to the culmination, as you say, we still have room to sway, and to go, and to surprise ourselves in places that we end up.
"So all the movies ultimately, when they are finished, can feel like they were all interconnected and meant to be and planned far ahead, but can live and breath as individual movies that can be satisfying by themselves.”
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Picture Credits: Marvel Comics.
