Why Disney’s Acquisition of 20th Century Fox Is Great News for Marvel Fans

In December last year, Disney confirmed that they would be acquiring the majority of 20th Century Fox's assets in a deal worth $52 billion. This is good news for Marvel fans because Marvel films are distributed by Disney and 'X-Men' films are distributed by 20th Century Fox. For the first time, the Marvel comics film rights will all be under the same roof. This means that we might get X-Men and Marvel superhero crossovers. They will all share the same universe. Previously, these crossovers only happened in the comic books because Disney didn't have the rights to the 'X-Men' characters.

It's a Marvel fan's dream come true!

Marvel's History

Back in the 90s, Marvel was a struggling company on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to survive, the company started selling some of its superhero film rights to different film studios. Spider-Man went to Sony while the X-Men and Fantastic Four went to Fox. These distributors went on to release successful superhero films, which later led to Marvel kicking off its own cinematic universe in 2008, with the release of Iron Man.

With the success of Spider-Man and X-Men, Fox and Sony had no desires to give up the film rights or even work with Marvel when Marvel started its cinematic universe and therefore, these characters remained in separate worlds on screen. This meant that comic book stories like Avengers vs. X-Men and House of M could never be told, until now. Disney buying all the film rights to these characters means that Marvel is now unstoppable in what stories they decide to tell.

Will current Marvel films be affected by this change?

As we know, Kevin Feige has planned out the next seven films running through until 2019. Past phase three we're getting a post-phase three which will see the release of a second Spider-Man Homecoming film and Guardians of the Galaxay Vol. 3. This means that if we're going to get a much-anticipated X-Men and Avengers crossover, we will be waiting a long time as Feige has said none of the current films in motion is going to change.

"We’ve announced everything through 2019, so none of those would be adjusted. "We’re focusing on everything we’ve already announced." - Kevin Feige

So don't worry guys, the films that are expected to be released from this year through to 2019 aren't changing. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 isn't actually slated to be released until 2020, so Marvel has a lot of plans in place already.

All Marvel Films Leading Up to the End of 2019

Why This Change Is the Best Thing for These Much Loved Characters

As any superhero fan would know, Fox's Fantastic Four reboot was a major flop. Possibly the worst superhero movie ever made. This is one of the reasons an argument started about Marvel gaining back all the rights to these characters. Marvel is a hugely successful company, every film its released has been a hit. Marvel's lowest-rated films on Rotten Tomatoes still average above 65 percent. That's some achievement, so isn't it right that Marvel should be the ones to make films for all its comic book characters when they've proven they're the best ones for the job? Have they ever let us down?

Several of the X-Men films haven't been received well either. Marvel has the ability to make the Fantastic Four and the X-Men movies great again.

However, this change could affect the much loved 'Deadpool' movie.

Marvel thrives on making movies family friendly but Deadpool is R-rated. Will Marvel lift their tradition just this once? It's highly likely if there were to be more Deadpool sequels after the second movie is released, that it will be allowed to keep its R-rating because Deadpool became one of Marvel's most successful branded films to date. They'd have no choice but to keep its rating.

How This Change Will Affect Netflix’s Marvel Shows

Disney will have its own streaming service in 2019, so with them buying most of Fox's assets there has been speculation that Marvel's current shows that are on Netflix will have to move to Disney's own streaming service. However, Disney has a lot of shows set to be on their service and there's no reason yet why that streaming service won't be successful. Why move Marvel's shows when they're performing well, what would be the point? I think it's safe to say that Marvel's shows on Netflix are safe. There's really no reason why they would move the shows.

The fact is, all this change is going to take a lot of time and careful planning. There will be a lot of changes but they're going to be good changes. Marvel is doing something incredible. They've changed the superhero genre forever and they will continue to do so with all its much-loved characters in the same universe. It's what we've all been waiting for.