We’re now at the tail-end of the era of Fox’s Marvel movies, as the recent Disney deal means that Marvel Studios has hoovered up the rights to their comic book characters. As we await Dark Phoenix, though, it’s worth reflecting on an epic crossover of Fox’s Marvel properties that could’ve been at the start of the decade. Apparently, the studio was planning to do an Avengers of their own, featuring the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Deadpool and Daredevil!
Speaking with Kevin Smith on his Fatman Beyond podcast, X-Men: First Class screenwriter Zack Stentz revealed that he and former writing partner Ashley Edward Miller penned a script for an abandoned movie that would’ve reunited every major Marvel character Fox had access to at the time. It sounds like he’s still restricted from saying too much, but he did comment that Bourne director Paul Greengrass was attached and it could’ve been “really good.”
“My ex-partner and I, when we were working at Fox and we were working on X-Men: First Class, we did a secret movie for them that, I can’t tell you what the plot was, but I can tell you that it used all of the characters, all of the Marvel characters that Fox had at the time in 2011. It used the X-Men. It used the Fantastic Four. It used Daredevil. It used Deadpool. Daredevil was still at Fox at the time. We almost had Paul Greengrass directing it which would’ve been so cool but he had another project to do instead. It didn’t end up going but it was a script I was really proud of and it would’ve been really good.”
As this was back in 2011, let’s take a moment to work out what this jaw-dropping cast would’ve looked like. Presumably, it would’ve brought back the team from First Class, especially considering Stentz’s involvement. Rise of the Silver Surfer was only four years before, too, so it may have also brought back the original Fantastic Four cast – though Chris Evans had just signed up as Captain America. As for Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds had been attached to that role since 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so it probably would’ve been him.
Daredevil’s an interesting one, though, as Ben Affleck’s movie was back in 2003, so Fox would no doubt have found a fresh actor to play Matt Murdock. As the studio didn’t end up reusing the character, Marvel got the rights back and gave us Netflix’s Daredevil. In a world where this crossover film was made, though, they likely would’ve kept hold of the hero.
While this didn’t happen, all of these characters will soon be able to interact with each other under the umbrella of the MCU once Kevin Feige sets about folding Fox’s properties into the franchise. In the meantime, Dark Phoenix brings the original X-Men saga to a close on June 7th.