WILMINGTON — The Walt Disney Company’s announced its intention to purchase 21st Century Fox for more than $50 billion Thursday. The acquisition could have big implications for the future of Disney and Fox owned franchises, but one of the biggest implications from the purchase that has people excited is what will happen to the Disney owned Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While Disney owns the Marvel Universe there are several Marvel characters Fox owns the rights to. These characters include the X-Men and Fantastic Four. The announcement of the acquisition has some comic book fans hopeful to see some of their favorite Marvel heroes, and villains in the same cinematic universe as the Avengers.
Port City Daily met up with Jake and Ben Motsinger, owners of Memory Lane Comics in Wilmington, to see what possibilities they were most excited about, and what possibilities Marvel Cinematic Universe fans could look forward to with the merger.
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What characters does fox currently own that could possibly be introduced to the MCU?
J: The big ones are obviously all of the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Silver Surfer and Galactus.
Out of these characters who would you two like to see join the MCU?
J: I’ve wanted to see a good Fantastic Four movie for a long time, they have really bombed those (movies). I am not the biggest X-Men movie fan but I love the X-Men, that’s why I am so critical of it, but I would love to see a really well done Fantastic Four.
B: A TV show would be preferable (for the Fantastic Four), you just can’t build that family dynamic in two hours. The same with the Silver Surfer … because they do so many cosmic things like Guardians of the Galaxy it stands to reason that Surfer would have been out there cruising the space ways with Galactus, which would also be cool to see a good Galactus on screen.
What story arcs would you like to see? Favorite story lines?
J: I would love to see something akin to the All-New X-Men series. That’s where they have pulled the kids from the past as teenagers and put them into the new universe … I am kind of hoping they just scrap everything and start with the kids.
B: The Ultimate Fantastic Four is one we’ve discussed a lot over the last few days about how it was a similarly built thing where they are all younger, they are all just geniuses in a think-tank … It would just be really great once you are ready to push out people like Tony Stark … With Tom Holland as Spider-Man and a young Fantastic Four would be a really great way to rebuild the universe.
What comic books should people read to get a background to some of the new characters that could be introduced?
B: I think for (Doctor) Doom, you have epic collections of these stories that go back to the first Fantastic Four books, if you really want to go deep that’s something you can do. Also Matt Fraction’s run on Fantastic Four dealt heavily with Doom and his issues and struggles with being good and bad … he’s not always villainous he’s not trying to destroy, he just thinks he would run things better than anyone else.
J: Yeah, he just wants to have a utopian society.
J: For the X-Men I always recommend the All New X-Men book, I think that’s an awesome one to go with … I would say any of Chris Claremont’s stuff.
How do you feel about Disney taking over films like Deadpool – which receive a hard-R rating? Do you worry that Deadpool will lose his appeal if Disney takes over?
J: I think they will probably stay to it, but I am not one of the people who say that is true to the character. Very seldom do you see a rated-R Deadpool comic. It’s not like it is a standard thing, so I understand when you have blood on the screen it changes things … I don’t think they are going to change it, but I don’t think it would matter if they did … If they do change it to PG-13 I do not think it would be a worse movie at all.
B: He has always been more of a solo character anyways, other people come into his things, not so much him into others. I don’t think there is a necessity to put him into the Marvel Universe it is very easy to keep him on the outside where he is now.
What villains are you most excited about seeing?
J: I would love to see Doctor Doom done well, but I think Magneto is an infinitely more interesting character, just because he is like a freedom fighter, you root for him and you understand why he is doing what he’s doing, but I do want to see Doctor Doom done well.
B: They need to really play up characters like that (Doctor Doom). He’s a magician scientist from an Eastern European country – that’s weird enough just lean into it and do it. You can have fun with it and you can also make him extremely villainous.
Do you think we will see Wolverine join the Avengers? If he does, it would likely be a chance to introduce a new Wolverine replacing Hugh Jackman – who would you like to fill that role?
J: It’s tough to call on that sort of thing but I would love to see them do the classic Wolverine where he is like 5 feet 4 inches and he is just a gnarly little dude who is just drinking beer all the time and smoking cigars. Hugh Jackman is a super handsome guy, you just have to go the exact opposite and make him like the original comic book style. Make him the fun character he should be.
B: It’s hard to picture anybody currently in Hollywood that would be a good replacement. Most likely it would have to go the unknown route which is a good thing because it wouldn’t make Wolverine the focal point, which is a problem most of the X-Men movies to this point have had – it all centers around Wolverine instead of it centering around all the other characters that have great stories, but they never focused on them because it was always about Wolverine.
J: He is way cooler as a side character anyways, I really hope they take the focus off of him and actually make Cyclops cool.
With the acquisition of Fox, Disney would be the major shareholder in Hulu, with the success of Marvel and Netflix shows like Jessica Jones and the rest of the Defenders, are you worried about the future of Marvel TV shows?
J: Not at all. Runaways is awesome on Hulu right now.
B: As long as they give it a similar reverence, keep giving directors chances to do things, keep putting the money into it. One of the biggest issues you had with one of the current Netflix series Iron Fist is that was them not putting the proper amount of money into a series to make it what it could have been.
What characters would you like to see get their own TV shows?
J: I think the X-Men would be a better thing as a TV show. You want to put time into these kids in school, you want to put time into them having relationships and dealing with their powers … all of these movies are like event comics … every summer there’s this massive event where the characters take on this huge bad guy. For the most part the rest of the stories are smaller stuff, you interweave character development with relationships and people changing. I like the TV shows better because I think you get to spend more time on it.
There are other implications outside of the MCU now that Disney will acquire Fox including: Planet of the Apes, Alien, Die Hard, Predator, Avatar, and the Kingsmen. If you could pick, which of these movies do you think would make a fun crossover?
J: To me that’s easy, fighting the Predator. Aliens and Predator versus the Marvel Universe.
B: While we are at it I would love to know what John McClain (from Die Hard) was doing when the apes were taking over the planet. Maybe John McClain was fighting back … he’s already fought the Grubers, now its time to fight the gorillas.
Authors note: These interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity
Michael Praats can be reached at Michael.p@localvoicemedia.com
