It isn’t hard to find fans of disappointed in the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises by FOX. What with the gross representation of cherished characters and story lines it isn’t too hard to see why. I’m still livid with how FOX made Cyclops a mopey romantic foil for Wolverine in the first X-Men movies.
Not cool, Fox. Not cool. And I’m leaving the whole Phoenix Force farce alone, though it appears they’re going to foul that up again. For whatever reason makes them make that decision.
Which is why many saw Marvel making their own films to be a blessing. Especially when the films found praise in portraying characters close to their comic book counterparts. One must only see the fiscal earnings of Marvel’s films compared to Sony’s and FOX’s to see why Marvel is faring better.
Sony, despite a semi-valiant effort to stem the inevitable, learned to share their rights to Spider-Man and seem poised to benefit greatly from the effort.
FOX…not so much.
Fantastic Four and X-Men: Apocalypse demonstrate this beyond a shadow of a doubt. After the Fantastic Four disaster rumors were soaring the film rights were going back to Marvel, though they were quickly squashed.
So with the last X-Men film failing expectations, rumors are once again flying about a FOX owned property returning to Marvel to some degree. Only in this case, this is there’s a producer making the initial statement.
Personally, I am hoping that Marvel gets their mutant back under their banner. Most of the characters need a massive overhaul in their cinematic depiction. Especially Rogue, I will never forgive FOX for that.
And with the exception of First Class, the films seem to focus on one character as a keystone for all others. As if the concept of a team movie is almost sinful. Which is mind boggling given the X-Men are a team.
If FOX is actually considering letting Marvel do work on the X-Men (and hopefully the Fantastic Four), there is a lot to hope to see in the collaboration. Course, if I was a betting man my money would be on FOX refusing to share anything.
But one can only hope they’ll see the light.
