9 Implications Of Disney Potentially Buying Fox

9. X-Men In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Long before the MCU was a thing, the screen rights for Marvel's most iconic superheroes were shared between several studios. Since then, many have gravitated back towards their home turf, Spider-Man being the latest when the comic book giant brokered a loan deal with Sony last year.

The biggest Marvel property outside of the MCU is the X-Men movie franchise, which means legendary characters like Wolverine, Magneto and Professor X are off limits to Disney in their celluloid form, but that could change if the firm reaches a deal with Fox.

There has been talk of X-Men entering the MCU over the years. Adding mutants to the shared universe would broaden its horizons and allow Marvel to adapt some of its biggest comic stories in a more faithful way - the X-Men usually play a key role in its crossover events - but introducing them has always seemed an impossible task.

Fox has never shown willingness to relinquish its grip on Marvel's mutants and has movies lined up beyond 2020, but prising them away after its current film slate has wrapped would be a smoother process if Disney bought out the company's assets.

The MCU has essentially written mutants out of its lore, so dropping them into the current status quo could get messy. If Marvel was to regain the screen rights to the X-Men, perhaps the best course of action would be to incorporate them into a rebooted cinematic universe further down the line.

The kind of planetary alignment that would be needed to make this happen could realistically occur. If the current version of the MCU was to wrap up around the same time as the X-Men movies and their spinoffs, the two franchises could be relaunched together under a common umbrella.