Marvel Could Start Developing X-Men & Fantastic Four For MCU in Early 2019

Marvel Studios is looking likely to start working the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe early in 2019. Kevin Feige spoke with Variety and said that he expects that he will gain access to the characters as a result of the Disney/Fox merger within the first six months of the year.

“We’ve been told it’s looking very, very good and could happen in the first six months of next year,” Feige told the outlet. “The notion of the characters that had previously been under a Fox agreement 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; Marvel’s been in a unique position to not have access to those characters for a long time … But in terms of actually thinking about it and actually planning things, we haven’t started that yet.”

NBC News reports that sources close to the Fox/Disney deal expect that it could be completed as soon as the end of January. With Marvel’s film schedule currently booked through 2019 though, don’t expect to see the mutants or First Family on the big screen until sometime in 2020 at the earliest.