I don’t know if you recall, but back in 2013, Fox tapped comic-book scribe superstar Mark Millar to be their creative consultant in helping them build a cohesive shared universe of all their Marvel comic book properties. Except, he was then barely ever heard from again. But when it was announced that Chronicle director Josh Trank would be helming a Fantastic Four reboot, many thought that this would then be the opportunity to establish itself in the shared X-Men universe. Except, they then said that they don’t want to do that for some silly reason.
But then earlier in the month a rumour surfaced that Fox were once again thinking of having their two big superhero franchises hook up, and they reportedly wanted X-Men helmer Bryan Singer to do it for them. At the time though, it was still just that: a rumour. And based on Fox’s track record when it came to shared universes, I didn’t think it was much more than that. But now Singer has given an interview to Yahoo, and revealed that the claim was far less rumour-y than we thought.
“Those ideas are in play. That would be a natural match-up because they’re both ensemble films and there is a natural mechanism by which to do it.”
And exactly what would this “natural mechanism” be that allowed the two franchises to crossover? Well, Singer played coy, not giving a direct answer, though he did reveal that it would involve something that the X-Men franchise has been playing with a lot to reboot itself.
“It deals with time. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past of course used time-travel to reset that movie series’ timeline to allow for brand new, younger versions of known characters to debut in his upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse as well as stripping away some of the idiosyncrasies that had cropped into the franchise over the years.
With Fantastic Four though, Fox is of course taking a much more traditional approach in revitalizing the franchise, by just straight up tossing out the previous movies (and good riddance, if you ask me). However, with all the production issues, casting disagreements and departure of tone from the traditional comics (this latest movie takes the more contemporary “Ultimate Fantastic Four” as its biggest influence), it’s still an unknown if audiences will accept this new version of comicdom’s First Family. And according to Singer, that is the big question that needs to be answered before any crossover talk can begin in earnest.
“We’ll have to see how the films turn out. To just say you’re going to do it would be a mistake, you have to see how the films evolve before you make that decision to completely commit to that.”
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that Fantastic Four and/or X-Men: Apocalypse are going to contain some Easter egg, some seemingly throwaway line that just opens up the possibility of the two franchises crossing over. It could maybe just be a name drop, or something in the background that only die-hard fans will pick up on, but then if Fantastic Four is received well enough, it will be expanded upon later. Well, at least that’s how I would do it. But clearly, I’m not the one being paid all the big bucks to come up with these things.
Fantastic Four is out on August 14, 2015, while X-Men: Apocalypse is scheduled for release on May 27, 2016.
Last Updated: July 27, 2015
