It took 15 months of back-and-forth negotiations, but the Disney-Fox merger finally happened Wednesday morning. Assets heading to Disney include Fox's film and TV studios, FX Networks, National Geographic, a number of international channels, and almost one third of Hulu. Since 20th Century Fox is no longer a standalone studio, Disney finally have the film rights to X-Men, Deadpool, and The Fantastic Four among others. However, fans shouldn't get too excited about seeing their favorite heroes popping up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe just yet.
Marvel Studios haven't announced any plans for bringing the Mutants or F4 into the MCU just yet, although the Hollywood Reporter has stated that Kevin Feige has already met with numerous directors and writers involved with previous X-Men movies. Disney currently has two untitled Marvel movies scheduled for 2020 and three for 2021, but none of these projects are X-Men or Fantastic Four movies.
This means it's likely fans won't see characters from either property make it into the MCU until 2021 at the earliest. Black Widow and The Eternals are scheduled to start shooting this year, with Shang-Chi to follow shortly after. Meanwhile, sequels to Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy are also in the development stages. Considering these all started pre-production before the Disney-Fox merger was finalized, it remains highly unlikely an X-Men or Fantastic Four character will show up unannounced in these movies. Of course, if they do, they'll arrive in a completely rebooted fashion.
As THR notes, Ryan Reynolds' incarnation of Deadpool is the only ongoing series that will make its way to Disney. CEO Bob Iger has already said that the franchise will remain R-rated at Disney and won't stop anytime soon, but the rest of the Marvel IP at Disney will be given a full reboot treatment. There are still two more Fox-produced X-Men movies en route with Dark Phoenix on June 7 and the currently in limbo New Mutants theoretically scheduled for Aug. 2.
It has already been speculated that New Mutants, a horror film based on X-Men characters, could end up on a streaming platform like Disney+ or Hulu instead of getting a traditional theatrical release. The production of the movie has reportedly been troubled, missing its original release date of April 13, 2018.
