Many comic book - both in movies and the actual comics - have been seeing and pointing out a massive battle brewing in the Marvel world. And no, it is not a battle among the heroes, but between the franchise rights owners.
Speculations are growing that Marvel intends to weaken the influence of The Fantastic Four and The X-Men, as 20th Century Fox owns the movie rights of the two superhero brands.
Bleeding Cool compared Marvel posters between the last 2007 and 2015 version. In the 2007 poster, Wolverine and the Fantastic Four were in the frontline, while in the current version, they are nowhere to be seen.
The noticeable change in the hero arrangement is in line with the upcoming release of Josh Trank's Fantastic Four, and the making of Bryan Singer's latest X-Men instalment. Cinema Blend also reported an issue last year during Marvel's anniversary program wherein the two superhero teams were not included in the promotional materials.
Furthermore, Marvel's Executive Editor Tom Brevoort left out a statement in Tumblr about the company's revenue streams, saying:
"If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you'd be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn't you?"
Forbes also highlighted the fact that "Marvel ends up getting less than 5% of any Fox-Marvel property gross, meaning movie licensing would split profits between Marvel (under Disney) and Fox." They noted that Disney was keen on pushing Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise, not X-Men.
In terms of the content of the comics, Marvel writer Chris Claremont shared that they are no longer adding new X-Men characters because Fox would have the rights to use them in their movies.
Moreover, many fans are dreading a possible plot in this summer's new Secret Wars, wherein the X-Men might be forced to leave Earth and to fight future battles in outer space.
