Are the X-Men going to be popping up in the MCU? Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Well maybe not as much as you may at first think. Back in the late-nineties, Marvel was facing bankruptcy, so sold off the movie rights to some of their biggest heroes - X-Men, Fantastic Four and Daredevil went to Fox, Spider-Man to Sony, Hulk to Universal. Since then the company's fortunes have totally turned around, and they've been able to wrangle back some of their A-List; Hulk and Daredevil have returned to them outright due to contract expiration (although the distribution rights of the former are still being debated) and Sony recently struck a deal to share Spider-Man (you may have heard about it). However, the two key Fox properties remain firmly out of Marvel's reach. The simple reason behind this is the X-Men's popularity. The franchise is responsible for kick-starting the whole superhero genre and, despite a couple of woeful misfires, has only become more successful. Unlike Sony, who had pretty much ran Spider-Man into the ground by the time Marvel came to their aid, Fox don't need help in making the mutants a success. But that doesn't mean they'd be above it - as with Spidey, both sides would profit from a deal. Last September, Variety published an article that passively suggested Deadpool (a Fox movie tangentially in the X-Men universe) was a Marvel co-production, causing major uproar from the studio, who made clear to all involved they weren't linked to the X-Men at all. That may seem like a nail in the coffin to this possibility, but don't forget that Sony were adamant there'd never be a team-up with Marvel, so it's not like things can't change. And Marvel's assurance did include a future get-out clause that means a crossover isn't ruled out indefinitely. In fact, based on chatter from interviews, backdoor rumours and clues from those ever-present Sony email leaks, it looks like we may be in the early stages of the X-Men coming to the MCU. At this point it's very much up in the air, but if it does happen, then all the clues were there.
