Decades ago, Marvel sold off the film rights for a number of their comic characters like X-Men, Hulk, and Spider-Man because they were going bankrupt. When Marvel went to launch their own superhero film franchise after seeing how much success Sony and Fox had, they realized they didn't really have all of the essential characters they wanted.
After proving they could handle relatively unknown characters like Iron Man, they gained a strong following and created one of the most profitable franchises of all time. Since then, they've been slowly getting back all of their characters with Spider-Man just recently joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Other companies like Universal and Fox have been a bit stingy about handing over the standalone rights for Hulk and X-Men, however.
Marvel has found some workarounds by including Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch thanks to some loophole and has been able to prominently feature Hulk without giving him his own standalone movie but it isn't quite the same. That may soon be changing, though.
Characters like Wolverine, The Fantastic Four, Cyclops, Deadpool, and more could soon join the MCU as Fox has been in talks with Disney to sell "most of the company". It hasn't been specifically detailed what they'll be selling to Disney but one can't help but imagine that a number of Marvel characters are included. No deal has officially been made yet and right now the companies aren't speaking but there's room for them to return to the table and renegotiate.
While it may be exciting to think that we could see Wolverine (probably played by a new actor) team up with characters like Spider-Man, there are some downsides. Sure, Fox hasn't always hit out of the park with some of their movies but they have taken risks with Deadpool and Logan which have paid off and are considered some of the best films in the genre. If these properties moved to Disney, it's likely characters like Deadpool would effectively be neutered for a PG-13 rating and we wouldn't get as many unique/creative superhero flicks.
Would you be interested in seeing the X-Men and Fantastic Four move to Disney or would you rather risk taking the occasional bad movie so you can see more non-traditional movies like Logan and Deadpool? Let us know in the comments below.
[CNBC]
