For a moment, close your eyes. Now, imagine where you were ten years ago. It probably looks a lot different than whatever your status quo is today. I, for instance, was preparing for my second year of college and had only the faintest glimmers of my sexuality and gender identity. If only 19-year-old Lisa could see me now!
If anyone can relate to feeling like “everything has changed” (to quote Taylor Swift) over the last ten years, it’s anyone who was in charge of concocting 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movie plans circa. 2015. Before the 2019 Disney/Fox merger, 20th Century Fox had the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four and wasn’t eager to lose these characters to Marvel Studios. The company put on a big San Diego Comic-Con 2015 panel dedicated to showing off its various Marvel projects and teased these mutant and fantastic worlds eventually colliding.
Those plans for Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four and the X-Men: Apocalypse leads headlining their own equivalent to the Avengers movies didn’t pan out. But boy, is it fun to look back on what could’ve been. Come with me back in time to July 2015. Let’s examine what Fox promised a decade ago for its Marvel future … and how much of it came true.
A Fantastic Future That Would Never Be
Reading the First Showing live-blog of 20th Century Fox’s SDCC Hall H panel in 2015, I totally forgot that studios and production companies used to bring out all their nerd-friendly properties for a panel. Studios have so heavily consolidated their Comic-Con presence in the last decade that (unless you’re Marvel Studios), panels typically focus on just one movie. Not so in the 2010s, when these panels crammed in as much as possible. That led to awkward moments like the 2013 Legendary Pictures panel where they showed off Seventh Son material but everyone just wanted to get to footage about 2014’s Godzilla. My, how things have changed.
In this case, Fox’s 2015 SDCC panel began with shilling for The Maze Runner and Victor Frankenstein. Then, it was time for the first Fox/Marvel movie: Fantastic Four. This title was just under a month away from its August 7, 2015 release date at this point. To promote the film, the main cast, producer Simon Kinberg (who was working on all the Fox/Marvel projects), and director Josh Trank showed up. Yes, Trank, who would send out that infamous tweet as Four’s Thursday night screenings began, was there.
The strangest part about rewatching this panel ten years later is how everyone is emphasizing phrases like “they’re a family” that fit a comics-accurate version of the Fantastic Four but don’t really vibe with the final film. The subsequent horror stories from folks like Kate Mara about their experiences working on this feature also add an extra layer of discomfort to watching everyone try to sell this boondoggle. Also, good God, it’s bizarre to watch Michael B. Jordan being sold as just a supporting player in a movie. What a waste of a movie star.
After Fantastic Four, though, came the real star of the panel: Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds and the film’s cast and crew showed up to talk up their creative ambitions for this long-gestating feature as well as debut a red-band trailer that absolutely brought the house down. Several Hall H panels featured trailers that had attendees losing their minds. The Deadpool trailer’s premiere is one of the most riotous examples of this phenomenon. People loved the trailer so much that they played the whole thing again after the crowd chanted for an encore.
An Apocalyptic Glimpse into Tomorrow
All memories of Fantastic Four were gone as the Deadpool trailer emerged as the panel’s MVP. After this, Hugh Jackman showed up to tease his then-upcoming third Wolverine movie by explicitly referencing the Old Man Logan comic books. Then it was time for X-Men: Apocalypse, with that film’s sprawling ensemble cast in tow to talk shop and debut footage from the May 2016 blockbuster.
The intent of shoving these assorted Fox/Marvel films into one panel was to sell the future of this franchise as one built on variety. Fox could do R-rated comedies, grim takes on Marvel’s first family, and big PG-13 blockbusters like Apocalypse. Beyond just reinforcing the concept of “versatility,” underscoring the studio’s comic book movie efforts, this Hall H panel was also meant to normalize the idea of Deadpool and Ben Grimm/The Thing being chums.
Though no official plans were ever announced, cryptic comments from Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg indicated that 2015’s Fantastic Four was meant to inhabit the same universe as the new X-Men films. This Hall H panel was laying the groundwork for further intersections of these superheroes.
That concept of chumminess between Fox/Marvel properties was especially apparent in a closing moment where all the actors and crew members for these movies assembled on stage for “the biggest superhero selfie ever.” A pastiche of Ellen’s Oscars selfie from 15 months earlier, this photo also included Stan Lee and Channing Tatum. The latter actor was preparing to start shooting Gambit (then set for an October 2016 debut) before the end of the year and even had his hair styled like the Cajun mutant. As this photo was taken, 20th Century Fox’s Marvel future was condensed down into one image. There was even a big screen behind these actors displaying all the various logos for these titles at once. But did that future go anywhere?
Deadpool Slayed, But Fox’s Marvel Plans Never Quite Materialized
Ironically, the only Fox/Marvel movie extensively promoted at this Hall H panel that went anywhere culturally was the blockbuster Fox didn’t initially want to make. If that Deadpool test footage hadn’t leaked in 2014, then the studio would’ve never taken a risk on an R-rated superhero movie. Significantly costlier summer blockbuster enterprises like X-Men: Apocalypse and Fantastic Four, though, never quite took off. Unsurprisingly, these actors would never rub shoulders in a context beyond this Hall H panel.
If nothing else, this Fox/Marvel Hall H panel is a reminder that you can never predict where success will strike in Hollywood. In the 2020s, Everything Everywhere All at Once outgrossed every single non-Venom entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe in North America. Crazy Rich Asians financially obliterated Dark Universe kick-off film The Mummy. In summer 2012, Universal saw Battleship sink, while Ted soared to incredible box office heights. This unpredictability giveth, and taketh away.
For Fox, this meant Deadpool surpassed all box office expectations when it hit theaters in February 2016. However, grand ambitions that Fantastic Four and X-Men: Apocalypse (plus Gambit, to a degree) would help spawn a cinematic universe to rival the MCU never materialized. Big plans in Hollywood or intentional attempts to “create” cultural moments rarely go as planned. You never know what art will resonate with people. That’s why planning so far ahead, especially with blockbuster movies, can be such a bad idea.
Who at Fox could predict all the turmoil that would greet Fantastic Four upon release? Or that Apocalypse would ignite X-Men’s creative stagnation that would result in Dark Phoenix? The ceaseless Gambit delays would’ve sounded ludicrous in July 2015. These 2015 Fox/Marvel Hall H shenanigans teased out a “fantastic” future that for many reasons (including corporate mergers) was never meant to be.
