Written by Mark Beresford
It’s something that had been spoken of in both hushed hopes and hasty debate since Iron Man first broke onto the silver screen almost ten years ago, but it’s finally happened – the house of mouse has acquired the assets of 20th Century Fox, and this has huge potential to result in some amazing films.
While a cinematic monopoly is in itself its own debate, we’ve still got a mass of possibilities to look forward to within the MCU and beyond. Here are five suggestions we’d like to see eventuate from the deal:
REBOOT FANTASTIC FOUR
The Fantastic Four have been at the heart of Marvel fans for decades and they’re still to see the cinematic treatment they deserve. Constantly smashed between a dozen genres in an attempt to grasp a wide audience and stuck in a mildly toxic rights agreement between multiple stakeholders, the FF have been stale for years now.
Given the treatment that lesser-known titles such as Antman or Guardians Of The Galaxy received, pushing the Four into the limelight would be a no-brainer and would lend the potential to hold down an Earth-based ‘Avengers’ type role while Feige attempts to push the New Avengers into his hopes for a more space battling future.
KEEP X-23 DRIVING FORWARD
Logan not only gave Hugh Jackman the Wolverine flick he had always hoped for, but introduced us to the X-23, or Laura Kinney. Played perfectly by twelve-year-old Dafne Keen, the performance locked the wolverine project protégée into the hearts and minds of many. Though the character and actor are both quite young, her comic book arc has passed everywhere from a younger origin such as Innocence Lost, time with the X-Force in Messiah Complex or the coming of age heart of Girls Night Out. X-23 in the modern Marvel scope is a gold mine that’s begging to be explored, opening up the teenage growth story that was touched on in Spider-Man: Homecoming and attempted but missed entirely on X-Men: Apocalypse.
DAZZLER MUSICAL
Dazzler has always been a bit tongue in cheek to most comic fans, and a complete hero to a few. The teen fashion icon has always been about bright colours, fashion, disco and generally finding the good in all. So why not use the character to their strength?
We’ve already seen with flicks like Thor: Ragnarok that Marvel have the strength to put together a team who can think outside the square, Dazzler might just be the ‘Glee’ experience we didn’t even know we wanted.
DEADPOOL TEAM-UPS
Deadpool was the surprise smash that proved sticking to a character’s true nature (no matter how dirty or violent) is generally the best method. Fans of the comic have no doubt read the seemingly endless team-ups the merc with a mouth has been thrown into and now we’ve got more chance of this than ever. It would take some trust from Disney and ideally another ounce of pressure on Sony to hand over the webslinger, but we could easily be staring at half a dozen eye-watering comedies to fill out Marvels more ‘serious phase keystones’.
LEAVE EARTH TO THE MUTANTS
Above all else, Fox has had its hands on the mutants, most notable of which are the X-Men. As phase three ends and actors being abandoning their iconic outfits, it may be time to let the suits hang unoccupied for the time being and allow the next generation to take on their intended space battles or magical realms and open up Earth to the possibility of Mutant Kind. A straight reboot of X-Men may not be the best direction, but it pushes us straight into a Secret Wars like event and who can resist that!
Pic via Marvel
