Screenwriter Zack Stentz revealed in May that Fox commissioned him and Ashley Edward Miller to work on a screenplay featuring all of the studio's heroes. A new report now provides details about what that project would have entailed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox considered pitting the X-Men against the Fantastic Four in a Civil War-style movie. The report indicates Johnny Storm/Human Torch would have inadvertently blown a hole in Manhattan while trying to catch Molecule Man. This would have led to the superhero registration act, like the one seen in Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's Civil War storyline.
Split onto opposing sides, the movie would have seen a battle between Wolverine and Mister Fantastic, with latter pinning the former down and "extending his hands until they're one molecule wide, and using them as scissors to cut the mutant's arms off."
The heroes would have eventually made peace, but the post-credits scene would have teased another major comics event: Secret Invasion.
As Stentz revealed, Bourne filmmaker Paul Greengrass was being eyed to direct, and the project never came to fruition due to the success of 2011's X-Men: First Class. Marvel Studios eventually gave its own take on Millar and McNiven's comic with Captain America: Civil War.
As the rights to Marvel heroes previously held by Fox now belong to Disney, the X-Men and Fantastic Four are fair game for future Marvel Studios films. However, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige says fans shouldn't expect to see the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for "a very long time."
Directed and written by Simon Kinberg, Dark Phoenix is the last movie in Fox's X-Men franchise. The film stars James McAvoy as Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler, Evan Peters as Quicksilver and Jessica Chastain. The film is in theaters now.