Rumor: Fox Aiming To Make 'Fantastic Four Versus X-Men' [Updated]
With 2014 approaching, movie news will continue to be incredibly slow until early January, so we figured we'd write about a massive rumor that is unsubstantiated, but fun to think about and actually quite plausible. It involves Fox's Marvel properties the X-Men and Fantastic Four.
An investment website is reporting Fox is planning on following in Marvel and Warner Bros.' footsteps by creating a film based on the 1987 miniseries Fantastic Four vs. X-Men.
Update: The original source has already retracted its first info, killing the rumor.
The site who reported this is called The Motley Fool, a long-running financial advice site. Thanks to io9 for the heads up. Here's the exact wording to start:
After multiple movies in their respective franchises, Fox has now decided to combine the Fantastic Four and the X-Men for an "Avengers"-style movie that could pay off huge for shareholders.
Based on a 1987 four issue comic called Fantastic Four vs. X-Men, the movie will see the characters against each other because of secrets regarding the Fantastic Four's origin. The new movie also comes as Fox is rebooting the Fantastic Four series with new actors and actresses.
Where'd they get this information? Is it true? Who knows. That's why we're staying it's a rumor. But let's discuss the logistics.
We know Mark Millar was brought in a few years back (or said he was) to oversee a larger Fox universe. Simon Kinberg was then brought in to do something similar, and he hinted at something like this. "I want to be able to build stories over multiple movies," he said. We also know there's a new Fantastic Four movie in 2015 and X-Men movies in 2014 and 2016.
That means by 2016 there could be at least three films building up towards this potential crossover. There's also the potential Wolverine sequel in there. Make it four. Four films is one short of how many it took Marvel to build to The Avengers. And that's not even counting X-Men: First Class or The Wolverine, which are part of the universe but hypothetically exist before the introduction of this new Fantastic Four. So by the time this film could potentially happen (for arguments sake, let's say 2018), they'll have more ground work set than Warner Bros. does for a Justice League movie.
That is, of course, if this rumor is true and these new movies are being made with this crossover in mind. That's a big "if."
If you'd like to read about the plot of the 1987 comic series, written by Chris Claremont, Wikipedia has a good synopsis. It doesn't necessarily sound like that plot line fits in with what is getting set up in the universe, but it gives an idea of how it might work.
Anyway, until Fox announces something, take this potential news with a grain of salt. But it would make sense knowing the current superhero landscape and penchant for Hollywood copycatting.
Update: The Motley Fool now has a statement that reads "A previous version of this article inaccurately reported a planned film release that combined both X-Men and Fantastic Four. The Fool regrets the error."