Marvel Studios now officially owns Avengers: Endgame, but the now official deal immediately gives studio president Kevin Feige and his team of writers and producers, as well as directors, the ability to use several brand new characters.
The Chris Evans' Captain America, and this influx of characters gives the MCU plenty of potential future stars.
Related: Marvel's House of M Is How X-Men Can MCU In Phase 4
But, before the X-Men and Fantastic Four can be introduced in the MCU, there's still some Fox-related business to take care of. Fox has The New Mutants slated for summer releases this year, but these plans could change now that Disney is in charge. With the Disney-Fox deal officially done, let's take a look at what it means for the MCU's future.
- This Page: An X-Men Reboot Is Coming
- Page 2: The MCU Gains Access To (Almost) Every Marvel Character
All X-Men Heroes (Except Deadpool) Will Be Rebooted
One of the biggest implications of the Disney-Fox deal as it pertains to Marvel is the reboot. For the last 20 years, Fox has created a popular messy continuity and X-Men timeline, and even though there are fan-favorite portrayals of iconic X-Men characters packed into these films (namely Hugh Jackman's Wolverine), Marvel Studios will reboot all of these characters to fit them into the MCU. Well, almost all of them.
The lone exception here appears to be Ryan Reynolds' foul-mouthed Deadpool, as recent reports indicate that MCU's own Wolverine isn't Jackman. It's unclear if any fellow Deadpool characters will survive the transition, though, or if he will properly the MCU - or not.
Related: How The Incredible Hulk May Have Set Up Wolverine In The MCU
Reynolds is already having fun with this new venture, too, as he likely maintain a R-rating and that they'll just be extra careful to communicate with audiences that this isn't the standard PG-13 MCU film audiences have seen for the last decade.
With Deadpool being the only one sticking around, this will mean that Dark Phoenix is the end of the main X-Men story Fox has been telling. Although the film was originally intended to be the beginning of a new trilogy of films focused even more on the younger heroes introduced in X-Men: Apocalypse, it will now serve as a conclusion to these characters' arcs.
New Mutants May Go Straight To Streaming
It will, however, actually be the troubled The New Mutants that will be the final Fox X-Men movie yet to be released. The Josh Boone-directed film was originally scheduled to hit theaters in early 2018 but has since been delayed twice and currently has an August 2019 release date. However, this release date was set with the thought that massive reshoots would happen late last year or early this year, and those never happened and currently aren't planned. With no reshoots done, The New Mutants is left in the same place it has been in for quite some time, and now Disney execs will be in charge of determining its future.
There have been several rumors that New Mutants could move to a streaming service, and that has been echoed in the latest report about the film's future. An eventual debut on a streaming service is the best place for New Mutants at this point, with Hulu serving as a better landing spot than Disney Plus. The latter is expected to launch this fall and feature mostly family-friendly content, which New Mutants may not mesh with its horror approach. Hulu's content is already more adult oriented and is an ideal fit. Regardless of which streaming service New Mutants ultimately calls home, this type of launch could allow Disney and Fox to reduce marketing costs on the film (maybe even making it a surprise launch to generate as much discussion as possible), while also avoiding a possible box office failure if it were to hit theaters.
Page 2 of 2: The MCU Gains Access To (Almost) Every Marvel Character
X-Men & Fantastic Four Will The MCU (Eventually)
Looking further ahead into the future, the biggest ramification of the Disney-Fox deal is that Marvel Studios will have control over the X-Men and Fantastic Four, with a reboot assuredly on the way - even if one hasn't officially been announced so far. There's no timetable yet for when these characters will begin to be integrated into the MCU, but it will happen at some point.
In of their standalone movies, the unofficial slate of films Marvel Studios is developing has given fans a decent understanding of what films they'll release through 2021. Shang-Chi all have directors attached and appear to be aiming for 2021. With this timeline, recent reports have backed up the belief that no MCU solo X-Men or Fantastic Four film will hit theaters until 2021/2022 at the earliest.
Related: Marvel Shouldn't Use Wolverine In A MCU Movie Until Phase 5
With Marvel Studios already largely shaping what Phase 4 will look like, any immediate usage of these new toys will have to be folded into existing projects in the meantime. That said, there's no need to rush out these introductions either, and Marvel Studios may very well take a slower approach than many anticipated to bring the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the MCU. They did reboot Spider-Man with Sony just two years after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hit theaters, but Marvel has complete control over these characters now, while they still have to share Spider-Man.
Additionally, Marvel Studios may also take a less conventional approach to these properties when they do decide to introduce them. he's excited to use lesser known Marvel characters, which he's found success doing in the past. This could mean a different X-Men team at the center of the story than fans are expecting or even kicking off the Fantastic Four with the Future Foundation forming.
Marvel Still Doesn't Own Spider-Man, Hulk or Namor
The X-Men and Fantastic Four coming back home to Marvel Studios gives them control over almost every Marvel character ever created. But, previous deals with Sony and Universal still limit what Marvel Studios can and cannot do with some characters - namely Spider-Man, Hulk, and Namor.
As mentioned before, Spider-Man is only in the MCU now thanks to a Morbius), and desperately want Spider-Man to exist in the universe these films take place in. The next deal could ask for all of Sony's Marvel productions to be set within the MCU.
Universal owning the Thor: Ragnarok and continues to be part of the Avengers franchise and would be how Namor could be introduced in Black Panther 2 or any number of future projects.
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Clearly, the Disney-Fox deal is huge for the future of the MCU and will drastically change it in the years to come. The impact may not be immediately clear, but it won't be too long before mutants and Marvel's first family are running around the MCU and likely crossing over with each other as well as other MCU stars like Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange.
