By now, everybody must know that the Fantastic Four didn't just underperform, but it was literally clobbered at the box office. Also, both the moviegoers and the critics tore it apart, being now called the worst Marvel movie ever, as well as one of the worst comic book movies of all times.

Even the previous Fantastic Four films, directed by Tim Story, made about $500 million on a total budget of $250 "“ the reboot didn't even reach $30 million in its opening weekend.

So now, obviously and just like always, the fans demand that the franchise returns to its rightful owner. But would this make everything better for Marvel's first family, after 3 (or 4, depending on how you look at it) failed movies?

The Spider-Man precedent

Fantastic Four is not the only property sold by Marvel. Spider-Man, Blade, X-Men, Punisher, and many others are (or were) in the same situation. The deal made by Marvel was for the studio purchasing the rights for the characters to make a movie featuring those superheroes. A sunset clause thus said that, for example, Fox shouldn't have a decade without a Fantastic Four film.

Which is, by the looks of it, the only reason why we had this reboot from the first place.

Spider-Man, the biggest Marvel name owned by other studios, was in the same situation. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 made about $700 million worldwide, so in no way it is a flop. However, it didn't meet the expectations of the studio. So a deal was made between Marvel and Sony concerning the web-crawler.

Fantastic Four is now way worse than Spider-Man was. With $27 million in the opening weekend, its only chances are the overseas markets. Only in this way can Fox dream to recoup the $120 million budget (which doesn't include the marketing campaign).

So could Marvel cook up a deal with Fox in the same way it did with Sony?

Check out on the next page if the fans should even take into account such a possibility!