21st Century Fox’s negotiations to sell its movie division to Disney had to be 2017’s biggest news. Not only that, seeing all of the Marvel characters together in a single shared universe has been a long-held dream among comic book movie fans!
From this point of view, Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox would mean that the X-Men and Fantastic Four would return to Marvel, along with all affiliated characters.
Kevin Feige previously said that there was no basis for discussing the return of these major Marvel properties, but he changed his tune immediately when word got out about the two media companies’ negotiations.
According to Deadline, Feige is eager to welcome Fox’s legion of characters into the MCU and include them in the projects he’s already outlined for the shared universe (more than 20, reportedly). And this can only be good news for most of these characters, with the exception of Deadpool, who doesn’t fit into Disney’s world of PG-13 movies.
During an interview with Vanity Fair, long-time X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner revealed that Feige (who’d worked for her in the past) had wanted to build a Mutant cinematic universe from the very beginning. However, the studio decided to go in another direction.
Most interestingly, Feige considered developing separate movies about the X-Men, Logan, Deadpool, and New Mutants, and then having all of the characters unite in a single event film. We're glad that this formula went with him when he left 20th Century Fox!
