Fox and Marvel Fighting Over X-Men 4

By far, my favourite type of films is Superhero films. I am a big comic book geek, and these guys get to have million dollar playgrounds re-enacting what me and my friends did when we were 8. That being said, the grandaddy of all superhero films, Xmen, has been my favourite franchise. So as far as I am concerned, they can keep making them and their spinoffs.

But wait True Believers, there may be trouble in the cinematic XMen movie world.

Movie Hole reports:

Though the studio has let it be known that they aren’t ruling out future “X-Men” films – referring to ensemble tag team efforts, not the spin-off films – recent disagreements between the comic troupe and the studio indicate that the partnership may be souring. As a result, Marvel may be taking the superheroes elsewhere.

Whilst Marvel and Sony are ecstatic with their relationship – and as a result are said to be already planning a “Spider-Man 4” – Marvel aren’t so keen on working with Fox on another “X-Men” sequel.

“Marvel has an alternate plan for the future of these movies. One that Fox is reluctant to take seriously”, says the site. “However, they may have little choice in the matter because ultimately the X-Men are Marvel’s characters” and Marvel has been making “even bigger steps to control and have more say in the production of their movies”.

So it doesnt sound like Marvel is backing out (why would they?) but Fox might lose control of the franchise. Perhaps with their solid relationship with Sony, their “alternate plan” will have them moving the franchise to a different studio.

But it seems more like Fox is trying to control the franchise more than Marvel would like, and Marvel has their own ideas. Unfortunately this just means possible delays for XMen 4, and the only ones to suffer will be the fans. At least it seems the Wolverine and Magneto projects appear to still be moving forward.

Comment with Facebook

29 thoughts on “Fox and Marvel Fighting Over X-Men 4

  1. Andrew, her name is Ororo. She is not Zeus, however in her native Africa she was mistaken by the superstitious tribal population as a “Weather Goddess”.

    Her mutant power allows her control over the weather. No mutant power “makes sense” genetically, so it doesn’t matter “how” she does it. Genetics cannot explain why someone can teleport, or shoot energy beams out of their eyes either.

  2. One more thing… Is storm Zeus because I don’t see how genetics could help someone control the weather… maybe minds, but not the weather… but arorah is acool name

  3. While I don’t share your enthusiasm about Xmen— watching it on my death bed and all, I did watch the decent third installation. In the grand skiem it matters very little what we say about them being good or bad, because anyone who cares enough to talk about them online, will pay to see them even if they were anime… Batman Begins and Sin City were the best comic movie writes yet… Spider man follows closely, but when you can focus an entire movie on the intracacies of a single super hero/character the movie should be good. poo on daredevil, electra, the hulk (that crushed me), and superman for they were still bad films… Batman 4 status with chris odonald casting you know what I mean.

    If your reading this hally Im sorry: I think your a good actress, but not for storm… the only worst casting job would be whoopie. I don’t know if me being a white male 6’3 would keep me from getting the part but I’m gonna give my all fans vote Andrew your knew storm…

    If you introduce aliens now into the X-men comics… I’ll cry blood tears like in the new bond. Maybe sentinels… don’t respond to this unless you agree…please!

    Mr. Jackman… no one does it better than you and no one will be … respek. he bloodied fools when he had to… while he was nicer in this then in the comics thats okay by me.

    Proffessor X… your character can no longer narrate and must become less of a leader… the catchy phrases don’t make him appear any wiser… sometimes I think he is controlling all the X-men with his win one for the gipper attitude. I’m glad he died and he died fighting… the funeral was nice! Since most people didn’t sit through the credits to the end we can pretend it never happened.

    I can’t stand Ice man, pyro should have killed him and then collosus killed pyro… you think he will stay with rogue now that she lost her power? Magneto should have established his dominance over collosus and or collosus should have fought the jugernaut… Best line of the movie… I’m the jugernaut bitch!

    Magneto 1 :professor x 0.

    If you read this far… I love you even if you hate me… :) I think that the answer for the X:men series is to do it Sin City style… 4 shorter stories… one with wolverine vs Sabertooth (even though I know that can’t happen with jackman). one with phonix and cyclops. one with the beast, collosus, Kitty or rogue, gambit, and night crawler …Iceman :( and finally tell the story of magneto and professor X…

    Ice Man needs to go back to captain planet because the marvel comics are over his head… I would much rather see the silver surfer

    X-men 4 is going to kick ass… I am going to bet against the house… I read all your comments and while I may disagree respect for all you fans of X-men.

  4. Well, I think this is awsome news if they do change studios. I don’t know how much of the things I didn’t like in the first 3 films were Fox’s fault, but I’m sure a good deal of it was. I can imagine how Marvel feels about protecting there character’s. They have every right too and the X-Men, besides Spider-Man, is there baby.

    I applaud them for wanting to Protect it so much. The X-Men are only some of the best cahracter’s ever conceived, comic book or otherwise IMO. I think Wolverine alone is almost as recognised as Batman or Superman even now a days. Can’t blame them one bit for wanting to change studios.

    And as for it making for delays, I don’t care and I don’t think any of us big fans will either. Hell I love the X-Men so much, I could wait till I’m on my death bed to see the best X-Men movie ever, if it takes that long.

  5. Well, IanHunt, a duck is a bit like the meaning of life… Sometimes its like a chicken and sometimes its like a chair and sometimes its like a piece of cheese, suspended in the air….. @_@

  6. Rodney just said, “If the buzz was flying around that this movie sucked ass, people wouldn’t have kept going to it week after week.”

    Yeah, because the people seeing it DIDN’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEFORE THEY SAW IT!

    Besides if a ten pound bucket weighs 8 pounds, how much do I weigh?

    And what does that have to do with the difference between a duck?

    Beat that love rocket!

  7. I have to disagree IanHunt. People do not know how good the movie is before going to see it, but their friends do. If the buzz was flying around that this movie sucked ass, people wouldn’t have kept going to it week after week. This movie made a metric pantload of money because people saw it, and told their friends to, and even went to see it again.

    The second two might not have been to your tastes, but the FIRST TWO had the same director (Singer) and the last one had a different director (Ratner), yet was still a financial success – even if you didn’t like it.

    To be at least 98% sure is also being completely and fully 2% dead wrong. There is no XMen 4. Yet. It has yet to be made. This was the point of my post. Also, Marvel has said there were some troubles in the creative process with Fox, not that they were canceling pt 4 completely. In fact, just recently we posted here about the Casting of Gambit in X#. Its happening.

    To insist there WILL be a Wolverine movie along with many MORE character based movies is about as naive as saying there will be no X4. The Wolverine project is well on its way, as well as the Magneto movie. Though no other characters getting their own movie have been announced at all. Not even rumours.

  8. Okay the numbers were high but that didn’t mean it was a good movie.

    I mean nobody knew if it was good or not before they even saw it.

    People who went to see had high hopes for it.

    My opinion is that the second two weren’t as good as the first, probably because they had a different director.

    Oh, and by the way, there is no X-Men 4, at least im 98% sure.

    But there will be a Wolverine spinoff (still with Jackmann), along with many more character-based movies.

  9. thats ok. But yea, what you were saying just then is what i was trying to kinda get at, lol and my first comment i made probably did read a bit wierd becasue i was being a bit sarcastic and opinionated and i forgot that people may not see that when its written down lol ^^ But anywho, i do hope that X-Men will continue on ok. It all just seems to be going from bad to worse with it lately :S

  10. I agree that the story has become a little stagnated and needs refreshing. A new spin on it if you will, but i dont see Fox backing out of the X-Men film business for quite some time.

    I think this is all about Marvel wanting more control. Both creatively at the beginning and financially at the end. Marvel doesnt see too much of that X-men money and they want in on it.
    And maybe Marvel doesnt like where they think Fox is going with the franchise. It could be a lot of things, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that money is the spark of this fire.

    P.S. – sorry if my earlier post sounded a little aggressive, but I just couldnt understand how you could think Fox could be looking at the X-Men franchise as “going downhill”. I liked the third movie but I liked the first two more, but in all honesty I dont think artistic quality is what turns Fox’s gears. Putting butts in seats does however and X-Men still does that. So again, sorry about the possible rudeness.

  11. ..not downhill with money, but maybe fox feels it should come to a stop now and maybe they dont think it would do well. But no, most of that was just me being opinionated becasue i didnt like it lol. lol i heard that last stand out sold little mermaid heehee. ^^

  12. Look it up if you want to.

    Worldwide box office gross –

    X-Men – 269,250,053

    X-2 – 407,557,613

    X-Men: Tha Last Stand – 458,734,982

    Sure doesnt look like Fox would think anything is “going downhill” to me.

  13. Turned out soooo bad for who?

    I hope you dont mean it turned out so bad for Fox. Why on earth would you say “maybe Fox just thinks it may be going downhill” when X-Men: The Last Stand has made more money than either of the last two X-Men films?

    And dont give me the creative success vs a financial success crap because we all know the financial success part is the only part Fox is concerned with.
    Why would you even pose that question? Are you one those people that think what internet bloggers post holds more sway than what the general audience says with their wallets? Because the general public has spoken (I hate to be the one to tell you this as it is very apparent how “disappointed” you are) and what they are telling Fox with box office numbers is that this franchise is very obviously going uphill.

  14. maybe its because X3 turned out soo bad…. sorry for me being soo blunt, but i was dissapointed with X3. But maybe Fox just thinks it may be going down hill. Hope not, i loved x-men, well, i loved the first two anyway.

  15. Check this out from IESB.net –

    “Right off the bat it really looks like whoever sent in those rumors to our pals over at Xmenfilms.net is probably an intern if he is even over at Marvel, or maybe just maybe, some talkbacker with an axe to grind with Fox.

    But even with the obvious holes in the story let me spell it out to all you X-Men fans out there and this is a quote from the studio themselves, “20th Century Fox owns the rights for perpetuity, which is a fancy word for forever” and it’s the studio who controls the films.”

  16. I dont really care what studio has control as long as they give the job to a director with a passion for the material. If Fox could find a director with the passion that Raimi has and let him make the movie he wants to make then it wouldnt matter who controls the rights. But I guess the reality is, Fox would never do that so letting Marvel control the rights would probably be better than the other way.

    I’m not a Singer lover or a Ratner hater but the major difference was that Singer was allowed to develop and make the first 2 while Fox developed and basically made the third one before Ratner was even hired. If Ratner was given ample time and creative freedom then I have the utmost confidence that the movie would have been better. Thats not to say that I didnt like the third movie, because I did, but my point is it could have been better if he had more time and control over the development of the project.

    Bottom line, I just want an X-4 with way more Colossus, way more “iced-up” Iceman, and Gambit as the central figure like Wolverine was in the first three. I think with Josh Holloway as Gambit, this could be a financial success just like the other films.

  17. I’m pretty sure the fans don’t really care who’s involved behind the scenes as long as the thing gets made and made well. I can see how this could definately cause delay problems. I hope not but it’s not looking good.

  18. Strange, it seems not too long ago, there was a Sony-Marvel rift regarding Spidey. They worked it out…

    The Wolverine film seems to in swing, all it needs is a director, which is tough because it seems no one wants to follow in Singer’s, much less Ratner’s, shoes (which is why these two names are top of the list) …Magneto…that could be tricky if this thing goes bad …and, I don’t see that happening anyway.

    If this goes rotten, I suggest Fox, Donners,. everyone scramble fast and make a film based soely on Gambit, which could tie up loose ends of X3 (if Magneto doesn’t do that) and have Gambit and a few X folks roam about in varied adventures, messing with Proteus or The Blob, Mr. Sinister, Black Tom…whoever.

    In any case, I think it’s blown out of proportion (as mentioned, Wolverine hasn’t stalled any; there’s also the FF franchise to consider…and, Daredevil, should that ever get going again, although i doubt it)

  19. Its really unlikely that they will move this away from Fox, but they will have to settle their creative differences before moving forward.

    There would be shorter delays to work out the finer details with the studio already handling the film as opposed to trying to break whatever contract or conditions they have with Fox.

    I am not sure how many movies or what conditions they have with Fox, but if it was anything like what they set up with the actors, they were all signed on for 3 movies before the first one came out. Maybe Fox has no legal hold on the franchise and Marvel is shopping, but there may be a First Refusal condition on part 4. I dont know.

  20. This could be a good or bad move. It’d be good if sony picks this up, they have proven to be good with Spider-Man 1+2. But X-Men 1-3 has been done with Fox, changing studios might change how things work, could be for worse.

  21. I don’t care if I have to wait longer for a DECENT movie.. unlike the last one that was bungled through a shredder. After Singer leaving, this might be a good thing for the X-Men franchise actually. You kow, fresh start and all that jazz.
    Sony seems to do really good with Spiderman, maybe thy can do the same thing with X-men.

Leave a Reply