Brian Singer Confirmed X-Men & Fantastic Four Crossover
As Marvel Studios and DC / Warner Bros. continue to build wide-spanning cinematic universes atop upcoming superhero blockbusters like Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War, Fox is trying to make the most out of the comic book superheroes it has on hand, which include Marvel’s X-Men and The Fantastic Four.
X-Men: Days of Future Past was a major shot-in-the-arm for the franchise, setting up X-Men: Apocalypse for box office success in 2016. Meanwhile, director Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot has been met with a ton of skepticism since it was announced, but with the marketing blitz now in full swing, its chances are as good as any film in the genre. As it stands, Fox has multiple X-Men films and a Fantastic Four sequel already lined up for the forthcoming years – and today we can officially add the X-Men/F4 Crossover to that list. The notion of the X-Men and Fantastic Four movie properties crossing over is nothing new; after all, when it comes to Marvel crossovers, it’s pretty much the only move Fox has to make (without partnering with Marvel Studios). Just last month, Latino-Review dropped the rumor that the X-Men/F4 crossover movie would happen in 2018 – provided that X-Men: Apocalypse and the Fantastic Four are both commercially successful. Here’s what director Bryan Singer now has to say about the two franchises crossing over, during and interview with Yahoo UK about the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past – The Rouge Cut:
“Those ideas are in play… That would be a natural match-up because they’re both ensemble films and there is a natural mechanism by which to do it… It deals with time. That’s all I’m going to say.” The particular phrasing of “ideas are in play” is good company speak for the ‘wait-n-see’ nature of this shared universe franchising. No one is really questioning whether the next X-Men movie can turn a profit (DoFP hit a franchise-high $748 million worldwide), but Fantastic Four remains a BIG question mark in the equation. For all we know, by this time next year, the reboot could’ve flopped and Fox could be halfway into a Sony-style sharing deal with at least the F4 franchise (which still holds plenty of lucrative cosmic characters Marvel might like to add to the MCU). Then again, if the Fantastic Four reboot makes enough bank, then Fantastic Four 2 and an eventual X-Men crossover is pretty much a no-brainer gameplan. What would be weird is if X-Men Apocalypse flopped, and Fantastic Four was a success. Oh what then! (What then???)… In any event, Singer dropping more time-travel continuity “fixes” will no doubt concern those who feel that the X-Men movie franchise has been thoroughly knotted up by such confusing plot mechanics and timeline errors. But as it stands, we have little to no idea if mutants are a reality in the world of the Fantastic Four reboot – the filmmakers and producers have always maintained that it should stand on its own, indicating that seeding the reboot with crossover connections wasn’t a priority during production.
Because of the storyline to X-Men: DoFP, the existence of mutants has been public knowledge since the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. So if in F4 four youngsters go to another dimension and get super powers and it is a world-changing event, then clearly the realities of X-Men and Fantastic Four would have to be mutually exclusive – and ergo, a crossover would require the sort of time and/or dimension hopping mechanics Singer teases. But how much of that will general audiences – let alone die-hard fans – want to slog through? The time-reset approach isn’t working out too well for Terminator: Genisys, but X-Men/F4 uniting onscreen could be (keyword: could) enough of an event for people to accept whatever flimsy or brain-twisting “why” makes it happen. DoFp pitched a whole ‘sending consciousness back in time’ bit, and people went for it. So… Of course all this is contingent on Fantastic Four earning its spot on the roster; we’ll see what happens in August. Fantastic Four opens in theaters on August 7, 2015, followed by Deadpool on February 12, 2016; X-Men: Apocalypse on May 27, 2016; Gambit on October 7, 2016; Wolverine on March 3, 2017; Fantastic Four 2 on June 9, 2017; and some as-yet unspecified X-Men film on July 13, 2018. |