Ahh the Fox Marvel movies. Some love them. Some hate them. Some forgot they even exist. One thing we can all agree on, however, is that, regardless of the quality of their films, they tend to generate interest/discussion/debate just as much, if not more, than their rivals over at Disney/Marvel Studios. However, now that Marvel Studios has reclaimed what is rightfully theirs by reaching a deal with the now-infamous production studio, we are free to look back upon the glory that was the Fox Marvel Movie franchise and everything it did...and didn’t do...for the superhero genre as a whole. While some of you may not particularly care for any of the Fox Marvel films, you would be forced to concede that they did indeed leave their mark on the industry and were, at least for a time, a shining gem of the Golden age of comic book films. Let’s take a look back at a time when Superhero movies were just as awkward as their rabid fans...and discuss what could have been.

The First-Born

In order to fully understand what Fox’s vision and intentions were in regards to the intellectual property they obtained from Marvel, we must wind the clocks all the way back to the year 2000...exactly one thousand years before the Jonas Brothers assured us that our great-great-great-granddaughters were doing just fine, and when jumpsuits were all the rage. There were a lot of prophetic predictions made about the year 2000. Some said it would be the year the world ended. Some predicted intelligent machines. Some predicted space exploration. Of all the predictions about that fateful year, however, no one… no one...could have predicted that a little film called “X-Men” would have cracked the top-ten highest-grossing films list of that year, kickstarting a cinematic revolution the likes of which has never been seen nor will ever be seen again. It was an underdog performance that even Rocky would be proud of.

Released at a time when you could still get your head shoved in a toilet just for wearing a “Han shot first” T-Shirt, it still was appealing enough to convince all of the neckbeards to throw on some axe body spray and explore the world outside of their man-caves. Now although it wasn’t nearly as financially successful as the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man film that followed shortly after it...that initial X-Men film was supremely important as it set the precedent for the success of that first Spider-Man film, as well the two sequels to both Spider-Man and X-Men. That first ballsy move by Fox to initiate the production of a serious film based on characters and stories meant for children and market it towards adults was something that would change the landscape of cinema forever...for better or for worse.

Little did everyone know that behind the scenes...Fox was planning something much bigger than anyone at that time could previously imagine….

The Prevengers

Before we truly knew what the endgame of the MCU would be...even before the MCU was a concept in people’s brains...there was a plan over at Fox to produce the most ambitious crossover the cinematic world had ever seen. Some would say that, even for today’s ridiculous crossover standards, this secret Fox mega-film would have been truly epic.

Details about a secretive mega-film have recently surfaced on Kevin Smith’s popular “Fatman on Batman” podcast, where he had X-Men: First Class writer Zack Stentz on the show. Stentz claims that he worked on a script for Fox that included literally every Marvel superhero that they owned the rights to at the time. The X-Men. The Fantastic Four. Deadpool. Daredevil. The list goes on. The movie would have been absolutely massive in scale.

Here is Stentz describing the film he worked on:

“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 Greengrass 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.”

Um EXCUSE ME?? What now?? Where the hell did this film go and why didn’t it come to fruition?? They would have surely made a trillion dollars on this film and had it been actually done well, it would have been among the greats like The Dark Knight, Avengers, and Endgame. What happened? Surely X-Men: The Last Stand wasn’t bad enough to halt plans of that magnitude right? I mean Thor: The Dark World didn’t win any oscars, yet the universe went on just fine...what happened that was so drastic, that it brought Fox’s plans of building a cinematic universe the likes of which we had never seen at that point in time crashing down into a burning heap of scrap metal?

One word.

Fan4stic.

The Fan4stic Train Wreck

Now I for one enjoy all of the Fox films in some capacity. For the more dismal and forgettable ones like Daredevil and Elektra, I tend to treat those as a sort of comic relief that I throw on whenever I need to have a good laugh or whenever my friends and I need a new drinking game. Even critically panned films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine had enough bright spots among the numerous not-so-bright spots to make them watchable in my humble opinion. There is one film, however, that even the most hardcore of comic book fans refuse to support...the one-that-must-not-be-named...the infamous….

Fan4stic (pronounced Fan-Four-Stick).

Yes I mean the 2015 reboot of the classic super hero team that was literally so bad, that it was the closest I ever got to actually writing a letter to a major movie studio demanding a refund. Believe it or not, Fox actually planned on that film being a smash-hit and not only had a sequel planned, but was ready to make them the centerpieces of an ever-expanding mini-shared-universe. Their own version of the MCU. Alas, not only did the film fall short of such lofty expectations...it literally destroyed Fox’s entire superhero franchise (and any credibility they had earned back with the X-Men films), as well as any plans of any shared universe moving forward...which literally every film had been building up to at that point. Imagine that Captain America: The first Avenger was so bad that it halted the entire MCU and embarrassed the studio so horribly, that it was forced to sell the property to another major studio that was acting in direct competition to themselves. That’s how bad Fan-Four-Stick was.

Ouch.

This film remains shrouded in controversy even to this day...with members of the creative team claiming that the film was heavily tampered with, and director Josh Trank even going as far as to say that he had made a cut of the film that would have “received great reviews”, but that “[we] would never see it” due to tampering and corporate greed. Now all of that reality show drama doesn’t really interest me. Tampering sadly occurs during almost every film production, unless the director is untouchable or the script is literally so good that it can’t be touched. What I am really interested in, however, is how the film was originally supposed to be portrayed and what we would have gotten if the creative team was allowed to do it’s thang.

The Short Answer? It would have been epic. I mean Avengers-scale epic. I’m talking Lord of the Rings scale epic. A film truly deserving of the title Fan-Four-Stick.

The original script of this film was so much different than what we got in the final product. Jeremy Slater was originally on board alongside Josh Trank to help write a script that balanced Trank’s grounded approach with a more spectacular comic-booky one. Slater estimated that he wrote around 15 drafts over a six month period for Trank before he was replaced by another writer. Of those 15 drafts, only one measly line of dialogue made it into the final cut, so don’t be fooled by his “writing credit” at the end of the film. He didn’t write that trainwreck of a film that was actually released in theaters. What he did write, however, was nothing short of special.

In Slater’s version of the film, the Baxter Foundation was meant to be a sort of “Hogwarts for Nerds”. A building chalk-full of the smartest kids in the world experimenting with hoverboards, teleportation, and artificial life forms. In this mega-think-tank, Reed was supposed to meet Victor Von Doom...a fallen latverian kid-genius who had a certain disregard for the rules. Eventually Victors ways rub off on Reed which, in turn, affects his friendship with Ben Grimm in a bad way.

Originally, the team was sent to the negative zone (an actual cool location in the comics) where they would have fought Annihilus. Annihilus would have appeared to kill Victor, while the rest got zapped with radiation...leading to the manifestation of their powers. Shortly after, Victor returns from the negative zone, claiming to have killed Annihilus and used his control rod to fashion himself a suit of armour.

Now I know what you’re thinking...this sounds pretty similar to the film we got, and you would be correct. It is very similar to the final product...until you realize that, in the original script, we were only a third of the way through the movie. All the events leading up to Doom’s reveal only took up 45 pages of a 130 page script, whereas those events took up the entirety of the final cut. Basically, Fox only made a third of the movie and called it good.

Here is Sater explaining what else would have been in the film that never made it into the final drafts...AKA his original vision:

"In addition to Annihilus and the Negative Zone, we had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60 foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet. We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great...well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive."

So yes...ultimately the reason for Fan4stic’s massive failure and embarrassment came down to nothing more than monetary greed. As is the case with most cinematic failures. They didn’t have the confidence that a well-written, well-directed, and well-funded Fantastic Four film would be successful enough to make a lot of money, when all of the metrics say otherwise. This remains, to this day, the biggest (and perhaps only) reason why Fox felt compelled to sell their character rights back to Marvel.

Man I really would have loved to see that movie. Not only because of how freaking awesome that script sounds...but because of what it would have led to. This will go down as one of the biggest “what-ifs” in modern cinematic history. Bar none.

“I Hope They Remember You…”

The superhero movie genre has no doubt evolved greatly from its inception into the mainstream movie-going experience. Avengers Endgame marked the peak of the golden age of comic book films and the transition into what I’m calling the silver age. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing...in fact, I would say it’s a good thing. Some of the greatest stories and characters in all of comic books came from the silver age. The golden age was named as such because of the feelings and memories it generated...that there would be no way to mimic the magic and magnificence that those comics generated. The golden age wasn’t the golden age because it had the best stories...it was the golden age because it started something that could not and would not be stopped. The comic book industry has survived and thrived and evolved into the 21st century and it can all be attributed to the work and passion that the creators of the golden age comics put in. The same can be said for this golden age of comic book films. Yes, some of it may be hokey...some of the films might not have had the greatest script, budget, and/or effects, but we still love them nonetheless. The golden age saw lots of success, lots of failure, and lots and lots of experimentation to try and get that formula just right to get the fans foaming at the mouth for more. It will be a decade-long endeavour that will forever be cemented in the history of mankind, and we are all better for it, I think.

The reason I bring all this up...the entire reason I chose to write this lengthy essay...is because I am seeing Dark Phoenix tonight, and it marks the end of a very special run of comic book films. A run of comic book films that, not only had a huge part to play in the shaping of the landscape of the comic book film genre as we know it today, but had a huge part to play in the development of myself as a person and my love of comic books. I’m sure I am joined by millions of others who feel the same way. I was going to write a review for Dark Pheonix, but after I saw all of the negativity surrounding the film, I decided to turn this article into a tribute to Fox’s good-natured attempts at building something truly special.

While Fox’s plans for a shared universe and a mega-crossover film didn’t really pan out the way they (and the fans) would have liked, I would say that their run with Marvel superhero films were largely a success. While most fans like to focus on the negative when discussing Fox’s cinematic endeavours, I like to bring up the fact that not only does the MCU exist solely due to the success of those Early X-Men and Spider-Man films, but that they gave us some damn good movies in the process. I would argue that Logan was a far superior film to anything the MCU has ever put out. Not as flashy and entertaining, of course, but if good films were judged based on budget and explosions, the Transformer films would be up there alongside Fast and Furious as the greatest of all time. No, good films are judged by the quality of writing, quality of acting, and quality of direction, as well as attention to detail. In fact, I would argue that Fox actually produced two films that are far superior to anything the MCU has ever made...the other being Days of Future Past, of course. Feel free to debate me on that.

Yes Fox has slipped and stumbled along the way, but their greatest accomplishments far exceed their greatest failures in my opinion.
While I would agree that Avengers: Endgame marked the definitive end of the Golden age of comic book films, that technically isn’t true. It’s Dark Phoenix that unfortunately will have the honor of carrying the torch into the darkness of the unknown. Now it certainly won’t get that level of respect from the fans, but let it be known here and now that Dark Phoenix will finally mark the end of a crazy era in modern cinema, and no matter how bad it actually turns out (yes I have seen the reviews), I will go to see it and I will clap at the end because although the film might be trash, this franchise has not been trash, and I owe a lot of my personal development and love for comics to these movies. It’s movies like the first X-Men trilogy and the first Spider-Man trilogy that actually fanned the flame of my curiosity as a kid, and convinced me that anything is possible. The reason I love comics so much is largely due to those early movies. I loved that old, cookey era of films and they will be sorely missed.

So thank you Fox. Thank you for helping start all of this craziness. Thank you for getting me started down this path, and thank you for inspiring me to be myself and do what I love to do. It might be the end of the Fox X-Men, but it will live on forever in these films, which are not only extremely underrated and hated on for no reason, but I think will age very well and will be loved for what they are. A shining golden trophy from the Golden age of comic book films.

Damn you Fan4stic.

Damn you.

-SAF