The elephant in the room this whole time has, of course, been the other Marvel superhero franchise whose rights currently lie at Fox and whom are soon to be going through a reboot of their own. The first attempt at bringing the Fantastic Four to the silver screen wasn't an abject failure, but it wasn't an unqualified success either. Both their debut and the sequel, Rise Of The Silver Surfer, don't really stand up in light of the high quality superhero films being produced today, so it stands to reason that they might wanna give it another try. It looks like they'll be telling the story of the loose family unit who get bombarded by cosmic rays right this time, with a younger cast and the director of the brilliant Chronicle behind the camera. It could also be the chance to build an actual shared universe, something which nobody but Marvel has managed so far. All of the Spider-Man cinematic universe will spin-off from Spidey, same with Star Wars, same with Robin Hood (presumably); if Fox do combine the X-Men and Fantastic Four series into a shared reality, that'll be the next big superhero universe on-screen besides the slowly evolving DC one. Previously there was no way that'd be compatible - how come the FF weren't mentioned in the other X-Men films, or any other superheroes for that matter? - but with the blank slate left after Days Of Future Past, surely anything's possible. There would be some challenges, obviously, with mashing the two together. From a narrative standpoint, there's the issue of why the public (in the comics at least) are fine with the superheroics of the Fantastic Four, but mortally fear mutants; production-wise, coordinating two massive franchises to crossover is no mean feat. Very little has been spilt about the FF film so far, besides some leaked set photos, and all these predictions about the future of the X-Men cinematic universe have been just that - predictions. Who doesn't wanna see Billy Elliot and Jean Valjean scrapping?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
