Marvel Studios might start developing X-MEN and FANTASTIC FOUR properties in 2019.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently appeared on Variety’s Playback podcast where he briefly opened up about Disney’s pending acquisition of 20th Century Fox, which includes film properties such as X-MEN, DEADPOOL and FANTASTIC FOUR. The deal is expected to be complete in early 2019 which means the MCU might begin developing projects for those properties sometime next year.

Since the deal has yet to be finalized, Feige has not been given the green light to begin work on those characters just yet, although he expects to start soon.

“We’ve been told it’s looking very, very good and could happen in the first six months of next year,” he said. “The notion of the characters coming back is great. It’s nice when a company that created all these characters can have access to all those characters. It’s unusual not to. But in terms of actually thinking about it and actually planning things, we haven’t started that yet.”

While details of the acquisition remain under wraps, it’s very possible that longtime X-Men producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg will remain on board in some capacity, even if the future of these characters takes a very bold new turn. Despite rampant speculation, no one has officially commented if Marvel will decide to fully reboot the current mutant team which includes actors James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler), Evan Peters (Quicksilver) and Nicholas Hoult (Beast). A reboot makes a lot of sense in the long-run, but there’s no official word on that until the time actually comes.

20th Century Fox has DARK PHOENIX and NEW MUTANTS on schedule for release in 2019, which means both films will likely release after the merger is complete. Whether they release under the Fox banner or Marvel’s remains to be seen, though considering they’re Fox productions, things may play out normally on the big screen without audiences noticing any difference.

Source: Playback