Scrapped Fox Marvel Movie Would Have Featured X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, And Daredevil

Long before Avengers: Infinity War delivered the "most ambitious crossover event in history," 20th Century Fox had an even bigger one planned with the Marvel characters that they had owned back in 2011. That means not only heavy-hitters like X-Men and Fantastic Four, but Deadpool and Daredevil. But alas, their ambitions got ahead of them, and that massive Fox Marvel movie was ultimately scrapped. But nearly a decade later, X-Men First Class writer Zack Stentz reveals what could've been.

In an interview with Kevin Smith's Fatman Beyond Podcast (via Heroic Hollywood), Stentz revealed that 20th Century Fox had a plan for a movie that would have far and away taken the title for most ambitious crossover event in history. Stentz had been working on a "secret movie" for Fox at the same time as X-Men: First Class that would have featured characters from X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, and even Daredevil, which at the time was still under Fox. Stentz said:

"My ex-partner and I, when we were working at Fox and we were working on X-Men: First Class, we did a secret movie for them that, I can't tell you what the plot was, but I can tell you that it used all of the characters, all of the Marvel characters that Fox had at the time in 2011. It used the X-Men. It used the Fantastic Four. It used Daredevil. It used Deadpool. Daredevil was still at Fox at the time. We almost had Paul Greengrass directing it which would've been so cool but he had another project to do instead. It didn't end up going but it was a script I was really proud of and it would've been really good."

Though Fox has had a spotty track record with its X-Men and Fantastic Four movies, if they had rolled out a movie with as many Marvel A-listers like that, they could have thrown Marvel Studios for a loop. Marvel at the time was still very much in its infancy, just establishing its foothold with the wildly successful Iron Man, the maligned Incredible Hulk, and the modest hits Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. If Fox had come charging out the gate with a crossover like that, it's possible that they could have undermined Marvel for a few years. However, there's proof that starting with a big bombastic crossover doesn't always work (ahem, Justice League).

With Fox now under the jurisdiction of Disney, we'll probably see that crossover sometime in the future under the Marvel Studios umbrella. Though it will be quite some time before that happens.