It’s no secret that Marvel fans have not been pleased with the three Fantastic Four movies we’ve had so far. Both 2005’s outing and its 2007 sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, were burdened by too cheesy a tone to really fly. 2015’s reboot, on the other hand, went the other way; in addition to its serious editing issues, it was just too glum to be any fun at all.
Since then, fans have been hoping that Marvel’s First Family might return to their “rightful place” at Marvel Studios and be integrated into the MCU. After all, Spider-Man is now shared between Marvel and Sony thanks to a lucrative deal that’s been a great success so far. Unfortunately though, it just doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. At least, not in the near future.
In an extensive interview with Collider, studio head Kevin Feige was asked whether relations between Marvel and 20th Century Fox, who own the rights to the Fantastic Four, have thawed to the point where a deal is possible, and here’s how he replied.
“No, but I would say there’s not like there’s anything frozen that there needs to be a thaw. There’s no weirdness. It is just very very cut and dry, and they’re doing their thing, and they’re doing it quite well in most regards, and we’re doing our thing.”
“Their thing,” as Feige puts it, is most likely the mooted sequel to 2015’s Fantastic Four. Despite the atrocious reviews and box office numbers, exec producer Simon Kinberg has maintained that Fox are interested in continuing with the franchise, though he has admitted that the first movie “wasn’t what we wanted it to be.”
So, there you have it. Sadly, we shouldn’t be expecting to see Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman rubbing shoulders with the likes of Iron Man and the Hulk any time soon. But hey, we can still dream that we’ll have a united Marvel universe on the big screen at some point in the future. When that will be though is anyone’s guess.