I Do Not Want an X-Men/Fantastic Four Movie Crossover
Ever since the monumental success of Marvel’s The Avengers movie – to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars – all of the other studios are scrambling to make team-up movies as well. Because when something succeeds in Hollywood, everyone else wants to do that exact thing (hence the 3D craze). The sequel to Man of Steel is now going to feature both Batman and Wonder Woman, with rumors of even more Justice League cameos.
But making even less sense is the desire of FOX Studios to put their X-Men and rebooted Fantastic Four franchises into a shared universe. I may just be another nerd angrily ranting on the Internet, but I have zero interest in this coming to pass.
Abomination!
First of all, this reeks of studio manipulation, and I don’t like studio manipulations. Marvel and Disney pulled off a masterstroke combining their Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk movies into The Avengers, and FOX wants that same success regardless of how much sense it makes.
And that’s the second thing, it doesn’t make any sense! The X-Men and Fantastic Four don’t have anything to do with one another! In the history of comics, the two teams have barely said two words to each other. They live in entirely different corners of the Marvel Universe, dealing with entirely different themes. The X-Men use super-powers as a metaphor for minorities. The Fantastic Four use super-powers to go on awesome adventures, pushing the envelope of science fiction and fantasy.
Get back to your own sides!
But I’ll never be able to convince a studio of this. Heck, I probably can’t even convince some of you reading this. But it’s my rant, and I’m gonna rant it.
What point would it serve? Money, obviously. That’s the only answer studios care about. But Marvel Studios just seems above all of that nonsense. Yes, they want to make money too, but they seem to have integrity. They took their time with the Thor and Captain America films instead of rushing to the Avengers after the success of Iron Man. They’re taking their time to build up their movieverse, taking risks on films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. But FOX is just churning out superhero films helter skelter. We all know that if they stop making X-Men and Fantastic Four movies, then the rights will revert back to Marvel and Disney.
And as much as I liked X-Men: First Class, I can’t imagine ‘quality’ is at the forefront of FOX’s plans.
They made the first two Fantastic Four films, after all.
They gave the world this
Storywise, what possible sense would it make to combine the X-Men and Fantastic Four films? Unless FOX plans to make the rebooted Fantastic Four into mutants, what could they possibly have to do with the X-Men? It’s not like the movie X-Men are superheroes. Not in the way the Fantastic Four are superheroes. What are they going to do? Team up to take down a partnership between Dr. Doom and Magneto? How could the massive, sprawling, time-traveling plot of the X-Men films possibly lead to them teaming up with the Fantastic Four? Why saddle a rebooted Fantastic Four onto the X-Men instead of letting them stand alone?
Neither team has any business being subservient to the other. Neither team has any business being in a movie together.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Still, I’d probably watch it.
Posted on December 9, 2013, in Marvel, Movies, X-Men and tagged Fantastic Four. Bookmark the permalink. 17 Comments.
Henchman-4-Hire 
Nor me, but I only because I find the Fantastic Four really boring. The only good thing about the FF is Doctor Doom and that great fictional fictional kingdom he rules.
And Doom was such a let down in the first two Fantastic Four movies! He was the worst part! Simply terrible.
Though the difference between the two is stark and I mean terribly stark, your claim that they two have barely said words to each other is not exactly correct. The Four and the Original X-Men, meaning the non blue Hank McCoy, Angel, Cyclops, Iceman and Jean, did have many crossovers during the Silver Age. However, that being said I do not want to see this film. As you well know as Marvel progressed through the 80s, these two streams began to go in vastly different directions, as you have said so much already. Plus, Fox has not had a good track record with dealing with a lot characters.
They have moulded the X-Men into supporting characters to Wolverine, which is certainly not the case in the comics. Hell, he had nothing to do with the X until the late 70s, and even then, he was far from a leader. I still don’t know why they killed off Scott. That was extraordinarily stupid.
I need not go into the travesty that was the films of Fantastic Four as you have ably done so already. That was little to do with the skill of the actors… Chris certainly has done wondrous things with Steve and Chiklis was inspired as Thing, even in the trash factories the were those films. Fox can not handle that many characters at once. They will make missteps again as bad X-Men 3. (Their is some hope for X-Men if First Class is any indication of the future films. Fassbender and McAvoy were brilliant.)
My Best and Wonderful Article.
For more discussions of Fantastic Four and X-Men check out the Extremis Review http://wp.me/p43bYh-cL
Thanks for the kind words! And didn’t you know they killed off Cyclops because the actor and Bryan Singer jumped ship to go make Superman Returns? I mean, there’s probably a better explanation, but I like to think everyone involved was just that petty. They also probably wanted to push the Wolverine/Jean relationship, which was a bigger deal in the movies than in the comics, where Jean stayed loyal to Scott.
I never thought of that. That makes perfect sense and we all know how that ended.
Reblogged this on THE EXTREMIS REVIEW and commented:
I agree with most of what was said in this article. And I’d like to throw my hat in the ring saying this is a bad idea.
See, you’re operating on the assumption that Fox can do better, and I don’t think it can. A shared universe is the best option on the table for the Fantastic Four. And that is true whether they were with Disney or Fox.
Think of this for a second. Sony has two more Spider-Man movies after this upcoming one, and then odds are they’re done. There is no conceivable way that they can stretch another Spider-Man reboot or something like that. At that point (in 2020 or whatever) they’d be better off selling the rights to Disney. It would be instant profit with no risk at that point. They’d also probably make a deal where they get a cut on the back-end like Paramount just did for Indiana Jones. Then Disney has the un-enviable task of rebooting Spider-Man again, but by then they’ll be adding him to a huge shared movie verse that needs him pretty desperately. It works well for everybody.
Now you can apply the same logic to the Fox properties. They’ve got at max seven years left before they need to sell to Disney to make any sort of money on these characters. And odds are they have much less than that once Hugh Jackman asks for too much money. So there is a time limit on what can be done profitably with these properties.
Now you have to ask where these properties can go from here. After Days of Future Past we can do Apocalypse. Maybe we can squeeze out another Wolverine solo act. The end. They raised the stakes too much. Sell to Disney. But that leaves Fantastic Four in the dust. And there is money in an FF movie, but not much. So their best bet is to do a solo FF flick, then combine them with a Wolverine-less team-up movie. Because at that point, neither franchise can stand on its own (and that is true if Disney owned them too). So have a real Galactus attack, make the Wolverine-less X-Men into actual super heroes and boom, have a team up.
Cameos will make this transition easier to swallow as well. The Wolverine-less X-Men cameo in the first FF. Show them off doing super hero stuff. Then Wolverine cameos in the team-up in Hugh Jackman’s last outing as Wolverine. Then Disney gets everything back for a price that’s worth paying, because they’ll recast Wolverine, Iron Man, and Spider-Man by then and toss them all together for a flick that people will see even without the original stars.
Honestly I think that’s a decent and realistic game plan. Galactus is too big for just the FF. The X-Men would make it more fun. Cyclops will come back because of time trickery or whatever. A solo FF film should be fine in the hands of the guy who directed Chronicle. And if Mark Millar is really guiding all of this, then I’d have faith in him.
I’d certainly watch and probably enjoy every movie I’ve mentioned in this post. And I think you would too. I could see the next solo Wolverine being a stinker. And the fourth Spider-Man will probably be on fumes by then. But still, it is all better than Olympus has Fallen.
I was about to get mad and tell you off, but then I remembered that Olympus Has Fallen was indeed the terrible one.
And I think you completely underestimate a movie studio’s willingness to do reboot after reboot. Or to turn Spider-Man into the next James Bond. Why would Sony ever sell the rights back to Disney for any sum of money when they could just recast Spidey and send him on another adventure every two years? There are more than enough comic book villains to use, and nobody is stopping any of these studios from making new villains. Frankly, I can’t wait for the day when everybody stops worrying about adapting some classic comic book story and just telling a new tale right from the get-go.
I also fully believe that FOX is planning an X-Men reboot at some point. Frankly, I’m surprise they’ve gone ahead and announced X-Men: Apocalypse. I still don’t necessarily think that Days of Future Past is going to succeed.
Though you do make a good point about the eventual death of the superhero movie boon. Maybe when that happens, FOX and Sony would be willing to sell back the rights. but we’ll see.
I also think someone is capable of making a good Fantastic Four movie. I really liked First Class.
I think you overestimate the world’s willingness to see Spider-Man reboots. James Bond is also a lot cheaper to make. Spider-Man (with possibly 6 CG-heavy super villains) is racing towards non-profitability. Bottom line: Ticket sales won’t come close to matching production costs in 7 years. Fox and Sony are going to want to sell before that happens. Disney is the only studio who can keep its super hero properties alive after the bubble burst. And that’s because by then there’ll be Marvel heroes in the theme parks and on kids’ shoes in 3rd worlds countries. Fox and Sony just can’t capitalize on the properties like Disney can.
Also, yeah, I can see maybe one good FF flick before the end, but I can’t see a good franchise without the X-Men’s help. Shared universe is like the best thing about Superhero movies. Jack Reacher and James Bond can never team up. But Iron Man and Wolverine can. Personally I’m looking forward to the single shared Disney-verse of Marvel Heroes for the Phase 7 slot of movies in 2023. The Civil War movie is going to be amazing.
Also, it’s going to be hard to just have individual X-Men movies or just have individual FF movies because people will always be like ” why isn’t the FF helping the X-Men” just like in Iron Man 3 when everybody was woundering why the other avengers weren’t helping out Stark.
I don’t think that’s too big a concern. People understand what’s going on with these solo movies.
In all fairness, the Avengers covered their tracks. Thor is back on Asgard and isn’t the “Midgard needs my protection” guy right now, Black-W and Hawk are shield agents, so they can’t just drop what they’re doing for Tony, Banner doesn’t like being the hulk and would likely cause more damage than he would stop, and Cap….well Cap probably won’t hear about it. Also, the FF really are more into science not marching in mutant equality for all wars.
P.S Banner probably went back into hiding.
Exactly, Marvel is smart enough to have this covered. I’m content with what they’ve done and are doing.
I agree the two shouldn’t meet simply, but there could be some affinity between Reed and First Class McCoy as scientists. While that’s not everyone, it’s a start, if they really want to push it. Also, the what hearing about the two of them together is making me think of isn’t possible in movies currently, nor is it even about the whole teams, and that is the illuminati, since you have half the group there. And on that note, isn’t Namor associated with the Fantastic Four while being a mutant? That’s something, but really, everything they could forseeably do seems too weak.
I’ve never liked Namor’s designation as a mutant. It just rubs me the wrong way. He’s got his own stories and stuff, the X-Men don’t need him getting his fish smell all over everything.
A cross-over wouldn’t make much sense at all because the Fantastic Four are explorers. We can’t expect the X-Men to care about Monster Island, Atlantis, Wakanda – yes even Wakanda, the Blue Area on the Moon, the Subterranean Cities, space aliens, or the Inhumans dwelling in Tibet. It takes away the focus of their plight as a discriminated group. But historically, it was the Fantastic Four who first introduced mutant Jamie Maddox, the Multiple Man.
I see what you’re doing, BernieB, trying to use my noted love of Multiple Man to make me feel better about this. But it won’t work! As you yourself point out, there would be little to no exploration if all the F4 did was team up with the X-Men.