When I started watching comic book movies, I was blissfully unaware of the politics that go into the entertaining of nerds the world over. Marvel was Marvel, and DC was DC.
I was sad when I realized that that is not in fact how the happy little world worked, and I would never see Wolverine meet Tony Stark (because let’s be real here, how amazing would that meeting be?!), simply because Marvel didn’t own the rights to the X-Men; Fox did.
Behind-the-scenes
We saw a bit of a shift here when we saw Sony give up the rights to Spiderman to let him appear in Marvel’s very aptly named Spiderman: Homecoming, which was the first time since selling the feature film rights in 1985 that Marvel has been able to put its teenage wonder on the big screen. It was very literally a homecoming.
However, to this point—and aside from a little deal over Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Ego the Living Planet—the X-Men have happily kept their distance from the home base.
Is Marvel getting the X-Men back?
Now, to be fair here, I can’t say that Fox has been doing poorly with the X-Men franchise. The movies are some of my favourites, and Fox picked some amazing actors to bring the stories to life. I actually much preferred Fox’s choice for Quicksilver over Marvel’s (blasphemy!).
But all the same, I’m really holding on for that Logan–Tony meeting. So I found it interesting that Stan Lee, that master of all things Marvel himself, dropped a hint that Marvel Studios was working on getting back the film rights for the X-Men.
"
Sooner or later, they’re getting the rights back to all our characters. They’re working on it, and they’re still making X-Men movies and stuff. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get more Marvel superheroes than you’ll have time to look at in the next few years.
Stan Lee
Now, it’s worth noting that Stan hasn’t actually been involved in the financial dealings of Marvel Studios for some time now. Kevin Feige, who currently runs the show, has said in the past that while in an ideal world the whole crew would get a happy reunion, it’s unlikely that they will.
Still, if what Stan says rings true and we do get the X-Men back in the MCU (maybe even in time for Infinity War), I think that’d be a hoot.
YOUR TURN
