Is It Time for Fox to Sell Back to Marvel?

Written by Scotty

It has been a disappointing weekend for Fox to say the least with the relaunch of the Fantastic Four spiraling around the drain.  I hate to see it when a director has to defend himself to the critics saying that the studio changed his work and it is in no way his fault for the movie being so bad.  With the Fantastic Four franchise being under the Fox brand it is interesting to see what other blunders have been attributed to their name and it might be time for them to move along and get out of the comic book movies altogether.

The Fantastic Four has not had a huge fanfare on the big screen and it may be because none of the characters ever seem to be right.  The Rise of the Silver Surfer had to have been their best movie, but for some reason it was never on the lips of anyone saying that it was a great movie.  I don’t think it was the casting, but I could never really identify with the characters and for a successful movie franchise, you need to be able to have your fans care about who is on the screen.  Now with the reboot, it seems like Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are von Doomed to ever see the big screen again. So the big question is, where does Fox go from here? Well, let's look back at their track record with other franchises before we come back to this, some of which have already returned home to Marvel.

Blade for example, is one of them. Now the Blade series had something to it and they were almost able to make each movie better than the last.  When you get too much momentum however, it is hard to cap it off.  Although the third movie contained and excellent storyline, it turned into too much of a cartoon for fans that enjoyed the grit and minimal effects from the first two.  This has to be my favorite series of any Marvel character to date, but since it is over and they have no place to go with the story since all of the vampires have been killed with the plague that was released, it would be pointless in bringing it back.  But any movie that has or had a good fanfare is always on the radar and with what has happened recently, I would not be surprised to see another reboot of this series.

Ghost Rider was a fine idea to bring to the big screen.  With plenty of special effects and Nicholas Cage at his best, it should have been a huge success, but it still fell short to expectations.  With a sexy cast, it shows that the fans want more from their comic book movies than just T&A.  What could have been done to make this franchise a success under Fox’s brand? I really don’t know, but I do know that the stories that they tried to tell were not as easy to follow as they should have been since only the hardcore fans seemed to understand what was going on, along with the why.  Can Ghost Rider come back from the flames?  I think it could and I think it should, but it would have to be in a small role in an established series to get the fanfare back, and maybe this is another one to appear on Netflix since its rights have also reverted back to Marvel

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Elektra and Daredevil, yes I have to put these both together since they were both equally as bad.  Seeing what Marvel did after acquiring Daredevil back from Fox to make a television series on Netflix, I can now see what the MCU is able to do to bring back failed projects.  Do I want to see more of what Marvel has done with their series?  Hell yes I do as it was much better than most of the programming I get to see from the regular networks.  Do I think that Fox did a good thing letting Daredevil go?  You be the judge of that since I am getting my stick and nubby hood on to watch the next season.

The Punisher has already been relinquished by Fox back to Marvel and I cannot wait to see what happens when he takes to the small screen. I actually enjoyed the first Punisher with Thomas Jane kicking major ass, but when they recast for the sequel, I was beside myself and started to see that Fox seems to believe that T&A is the only thing that sells.  I will admit, there are some beautiful people that appear on the big screen and most of the time I am in awe of them, but if they cannot act their way out of a wet cardboard box, it may be time to change up your formula.

Then there's the most successful comic book franchise, X-Men.  I don’t know what to say about these movies, but if you don’t like Wolverine, you should probably not watch them.  Except for maybe First Class, he told the professor to f-off.  These movies have been falling on star power, but the difference is that the first movie made the stars and then they got to carry the franchise.  But this franchise is far from not having faults as there seems to be a pattern of one bad movie after a good one.  It has to do with the story telling since all of the actors have stayed with it as long as they can to keep it alive.  I am worried that there is not a direct follow up to Days of Future Past which was fantastic in my eyes and most of the fans. Overall Apocalypse looks like they are going to kill off all of our favorite characters, since none of them have contracts past this one and then they will have to reboot the franchise. 

As for Fox’s track record, it looks like they have swung and missed more often than they have hit a home run.  There are some good films in these franchises and I will admit I own several of them, but it does not appear that they are doing their job for the fans to keep these characters out of the void of what could have been.  I have high hopes for Deadpool in February, but looking at this list, I may have to lower my standards by quite a bit so I am not too disappointed with the results.  So should Fox get out of Marvel’s way, and sell everything back to them? Part of me wants to say yes since so many properties have gone back to Marvel, yet part of me wants to say no because of how much Fox contributed to getting the MCU off of the ground. Either way, the only clear path for Fox is to do a better job with these stories period, otherwise Marvel will come knocking to set those stories straight and if you need proof of that, look no further than their involvement/partnership with Sony regarding Spider-Man.

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