Fox-Marvel Almost Did A Superhero Team-Up Movie Even Before The Avengers First Assembled On-screen.

Superhero team-ups are the box office moneymakers right now. But way back before the Avengers, there was one mega team up with Marvel characters that almost happened.

Fox was actually quite close to having an ensemble crossover film of their own by using Marvel characters nearly a decade ago. At the time, the studio was releasing films such as X-Men: First Class and was years away from dropping Fantastic Four or Deadpool in the theatres. However, they were one scheduling conflict away from bringing all of their Marvel heroes together for an ensemble movie.

Also Read: Did X-Men: Dark Phoenix Reshoots change the setting of third act climax?

Who Were There In The Team-up Fox Movie?

Zack Stentz, writer of Rim of the World, Thor, and X-Men: First Class had submitted a script to 20th Century Fox which pulled together an onslaught of Marvel characters like nothing the studio had done before. He said:

“My ex-partner and I, when we were working at Fox and we were working on X-Men: First Class, we did a secret movie for them that, I can’t tell you what the plot was, but I can tell you that it used all of the characters, all of the Marvel characters that Fox had at the time in 2011. It used the X-Men. It used the Fantastic Four. It used Daredevil. It used Deadpool. Daredevil was still at Fox at the time. We almost had Paul Green directing it which would’ve been so cool but he had another project to do instead. It didn’t end up going but it was a script I was really proud of and it would’ve been really good.”

Kevin Smith Revealed This News

This reveal came on uber fanboy and director Kevin Smith’s Fatman Beyond podcast, which you can check out in the video above. Stentz was a bit more at ease in revealing the film which almost happened considering the studio being bought by Disney. Stentz said that: “This was at Fox in 2011, which doesn’t really exist anymore, so maybe they won’t sue me for revealing. Even though, I didn’t reveal what it was called.”

There Are More Fox Secrets

The Fox-Marvel ensemble epic was not the only effort by the screenwriter which never came to life. Stentz says:

“The other thing that’s never going to happen is the version that Ash and I did of the Fantastic Four. Josh Trank,who ended up doing the Fantastic Four that we saw in the theatres, we were supposed to be writing the script for him but nobody told him that we were doing it.”

Also Read: Disney To Evaluate ‘X-Men’ Spinoff ‘Gambit’

Ultimately Josh Trank wanted to use his own writer and do his own version. But Stentz was proud of that script because it was about how the Fantastic Four were almost the Fantastic Five but a young man named Victor Von Doom who was just too damaged to be part of them. It was a script he was very proud of but Josh Trank didn’t wanna do it.

But Stentz did point out that he holds no grudge against Josh Trank and is rooting for his next directorial effort.

Fox’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix opens in theatres on June 7.

Source: comicbook.com and screenrant.com)