Almost every day since news broke of the impending deal between Fox and Disney that would see heroes like the X-Men and Fantastic Four come home to the MCU, some have jumped ahead to concluding that everything has already been sorted out. But as I’ve tried to make clear on this site, as Fox adds more projects to their slate as if nothing has changed…well, that’s because nothing has actually changed. A deal of this magnitude doesn’t come together overnight, and Marvel’s Kevin Feige is encouraging fans to slow down a little bit as it could be more than a year until it’s finalized.
Speaking with Vulture to hype the upcoming release of Black Panther, Feige says he found out about the deal the same way as us. Not only that, but any planning over the inclusion of Fox’s Marvel characters into the MCU is premature at best…
“I read about it in the press like most people did,” Feige said. “These are big deals, and certainly above my pay grade.” He added, “The truth of the matter as I understand it is the deal has to be figured out. There’s been no communication. We’re not thinking about it. We’re focusing on everything we’ve already announced. If and when the deal actually happens, we’ll start to think more about it. Until then, we have a lot to do… It would be years away. We’ve announced everything through 2019, so none of those would be adjusted. I think about it through 2019, through the movies we’ve already shot or are about to start filming. I’m hoping to deliver on everything we’ve promised thus far.”
I don’t expect this to get done until well into 2019. And knowing how Feige operates, I doubt he’ll start figuring where to put, say, an X-Force movie (or if to even have one) into the already-crowded MCU until he has all of his soldiers lined up like a bunch of Multiple Men.
