Stan Lee Optimistic About Marvel Getting X-Men And Fantastic Four Rights Back Eventua
 

Marvel fandom can't be blamed for wanting the rights to Fantastic Four and X-Men back in the creator's hands, and Stan Lee has some thoughts on the characters he helped create.

Alongside creators like Jack Kirby and Len Wein, Lee helped to create some of the most popular characters in the Marvel stable. Two teams in particular though are currently in the hands of another studio. The X-Men and Fantastic Four are both currently at 20th Century Fox, but Lee revealed at Wizard World Nashville what he sees coming down the pike for any properties outside of Marvel Studios preview.

"Sooner or later, they're going to get the rights back to all our characters," Lee said. "They're working on it, and they're still making X-Men movies and stuff. Don't worry about it. You'll get more Marvel superheroes than you'll have time to look at in the next few years."

Those two properties aren't the only ones housed at other studios, as Spider-Man is still located at Sony. The big difference, of course, is that Sony has an agreement with Marvel Studios to share the character, which allowed Tom Holland's Spidey to appear in Captain America: Civil War. It also allows Marvel input and a certain amount of control over his movies in Sony's universe, which fans could certainly see in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

The Fantastic Four return seems inevitable at this point, thanks to two failed franchise launches in a matter of a few years. The 2015 relaunch of Fantastic Four did not go over so well with critics or fans, netting a paltry $56 million domestically and a worldwide total of over $167 million. The previous launch was received more warmly, though the sequel pretty much sunk that ship.

Still, 20th Century Fox isn't giving up on it just yet, with two Fantastic Four projects rumored to be in development. The Doctor Doom solo film is interesting, as is the rumored kid-friendly Fantastic Four reboot based on Mark Millar's Kindergarten Heroes.

The X-Men franchise is something of a longer play, as that series still generates worthwhile income for Fox, and between Deadpool and Logan's positive reception, Fox isn't letting that gravy train go anytime soon.

http://comicbook.com/marvel/2017/09/...tic-four-back/

X-Men will be the last thing to go back.

First, Fantastic Four. Then later Spiderman will (please, hopefully) end back up at Marvel.

Then finally, kicking and screaming, the muties.

If "Dark Phoenix Redux" lands on its face things might be looking up. But damn Deadpool... why couldn't you have been a flop? It sounds like they're doing exactly like I predicted, and building the X-Force and all that around him.

The sad part is that if the X-Men go back to Marvel... you just know there would never be a movie like "Logan." They don't do that kind of fare. But I'd rather take one less "Logan" as long as there's 20 less tiny Bryan Singer movies.

Yeah. If Deadpool had flopped, the X-Men would be done. Logan would have happened as a swan song, and we'd all move on.

But nope, Deadpool was a shot in the arm so now we've got Deadpool 2, X-Force, New Mutants, Dark Phoenix Remix, and (snickering) Gambit.

That's why I'm conflicted about X-Men going back. Apocalypse was bland, sure, but there's no way in hell Disney would ever have done something like Deadpool or Logan.

But I am in full support of FF going back. The MCU could really benefit from having Galactus.

With how much the latest Fantastic four film bomed I don't know all those spin offs and sequel would be done. You'd have to be insane to try that again, the original Fantastic four films did better than that one.

I hope they learned from the studio who worked on the reboot Ghost Busters film, they aren't working on a sequel for that one.

Doubtful. Regardless of critical reception, the X-Men franchise have been financially successful and still going after 17 years(!). If the day finally comes where an X-Men movie actually bombs (no, Apocalypse pulling in $543 million doesn't count), they'll put it on ice for about 5 years and try again.

And if that fails, they'll try it again.

X-Men aren't going anywhere, and that's fine with me.

I've never understood how their world meshed with the rest of the Marvel universe anyways. "Kill all mutants! Kill all mutants! ...Oh, but Spider-Man? Hulk? We looooove those guys! They're our heroes!" It's dumb. Especially when it seems to all take place in New York.

Not true. The general public hated and feared characters like Hulk and Spider-Man as much as mutants. Even heroes like the Vision and the Thing got a bum rap as well.

I read a lot of Marvel growing up and that was definitely not the case.

You'd see people buying Spider-Man T-Shirts off vendors off the street, kids with Spider-Man and Thor toys, costumes... Heck, wasn't Flash Thompson's whole shtick for a while is that he hated Peter but loved Spider-Man?

But yeah, the pattern I noticed is that if I were reading an X-Men comic, you wouldn't see any of that. And you'd get random people talking about how much the don't trust Spidey or anything. Then you'd flip open a copy of Spider-Man and the city is doing a whole parade for him or something. It never added up.

When in the world did you see a comic where Spidey got a parade? I can only think of one issue off the top of my head where the public gathered to celebrate Spidey, and that was the issue where Spidey was acquitted of all charges or something. Even after that he was still pretty distrusted by the general public, especially when he got his black suit.

Oh, hell if I know. I read Marvel from 91-98ish I think, and even then I was reading from a bunch of different eras. But I mean... even using that one example you gave me, would they really throw a parade for someone they hate, even if acquitted of some charges? Could you really see that happening with the X-Men?