As reported back in June, 20th Century Fox has accepted a $71 billion offer from Disney and now the merger between the two companies is growing ever closer. Soon, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and X-Men universes will live under one roof – and their marriage could be happening very soon.
The Hollywood Reporter claims that ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ could be the first Fox-Marvel movie to be released by Disney.
‘Dark Phoenix’ was recently delayed from February to June 2019, a date which the report observes won't clash with any upcoming Disney releases.
It is unlikely that any MCU characters will feature in the upcoming Sophie Turner starrer, given that shooting wrapped before the Disney-Fox merger was officially finalised, and legally speaking, the companies aren't currently allowed to be coordinating their efforts while the merger is underway.
The two cinematic universes could, however, be combined in the future – though not until after Fox’s next X-Men movie ‘New Mutants’ (due for release in August), as production on it is also nearly complete.
Jokes have previously been about what the properties Disney inherits from Fox will end up looking like.
Disney will inherit an insane number of Fox’s properties as a result of the deal, the full list of which you can see here.
The THR report details that Fox has also started shifting around its release schedule, which is likely in order to move competition away from Disney’s release dates.
Fox’s ‘Death on the Nile’ (the sequel to ‘Murder on the Orient Express’), for example, was supposed to come out on December 20, 2019 – the same date as ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ – but has now been rescheduled to autumn 2020.
Fox has also pushed ‘Ad Astra’, starring Brad Pitt, from January to late May, while relocating the action-comedy ‘Stuber’, starring Dave Bautista, from May to July.
