ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - The Cancelled X-Men vs Fantastic Four Movie, Explained

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

In Avengers: Doomsday, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers are going to face off against the X-Men. But did you know that Fox tried to make this battle happen years ago, before the Avengers? We detail the lost Fox Marvel crossover script that would have changed the direction of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and maybe even denied us Captain America: Civil War.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Stay back. Be free to get somebody killed. Go fuck yourself, pretty boy. Oh, my God. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush.

I'm Ryan Erie. Now, like, I know we're all excited for Avengers Doomsday when we're going to see the Fox X-Men fight the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. But did you know that years ago, we came this close to seeing the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four fight in the same movie. And this would have been before the Avengers ever assembled.

Right, right, what are you talking about, person? Well, back before Disney bought 20th Century Fox back in 2018, the studio owned the film rights to several Marvel characters, like The X-Men, Deadpool, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four. Now, back in 2010, while X-Men First Class was in production, Fox was planning for a film where all of those X-Men characters in the Fantastic Four came together in a giant crossover movie. And they hired the writers of X-Men First Class,

Zach Stents and Ashley Miller, to write the script for this film. They also briefly talked to the Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass about directing, which would have been insane. Now, Zach Stence actually briefly talked about this script back in 2019 on Kevin Smith's Fat Man Beyond podcast. We did a secret movie for them that used all of the Marvel characters that Fox had at the time. Now, Stents could not go into any plot details in that interview. But an article from the Hollywood Reporter released around that same time did give some more details on the cancelled project. And it turns out this film would have actually been based on the Marvel Comics event Civil War.

But we already got Captain America Civil War. Impossible to have too. But remember, the MCU's Civil War movie was released in 2016, and this is years before that. And this Fox version of Civil War would have been really different from the MCU version. But according to these reports, it actually would have started out in a similar way. Where do you mean? Well, this movie would have started with Johnny Storm, you know, the human torch, going after the villain the Mole Man. You mean the guy from Atlantis, the Lost Empire?

Lingly dig. No, Doug. I mean the Fantastic Four villain called the Mole Man. He is a brilliant scientist that lives underground and controls an army of monsters. In fact, he's the first villain the Fantastic Four ever faced. Oh, like the Underminer from the Incredibles. Exactly. And in this pursuit of the Mole Man,

Johnny goes full supernova with his powers like he was warned about doing in the 2005 Fantastic Four film. Only could you kill yourself, but you could set fire to Earth's atmosphere and destroy all human life, as we know. But remember, then he did this again in the fight against Dr. Doom at the end of that movie. Johnny, Supernova. I thought we agreed that was bad. Now! But in this version of Civil War, Johnny going Supernova would have literally blown a hole in Manhattan, resulting in an insane level of damage. And this would have caused the government to issue the Superhero Registration Act as a response. Now, just like in the MCU version, this Superhero Registration Act would have divided all of the heroes on two opposing sides.

So who is going to be on each team? Well, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of detail on who would have exactly been on which team. But if it followed the Civil War comic, then it would have gotten really interesting. Er, say more. So, in the Civil War comic, Iron Man and Captain America are the two main characters,

with Iron Man leading the pro-registration side and hunting down any unregistered heroes, while Captain America leads an underground resistance movement known as the Secret Avengers. But another character with a huge role during this series was Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. We've got a serious problem. So, during Civil War, Mr. Fantastic is basically Iron Man's right-hand man on the pro-registration side.

And this, of course, causes issues between him and his teammates. He even builds a prison for superheroes in the negative zone. Reed, like Tony Stark, is a futurist. So he sees that they could never enforce registration if they didn't have a means of punishment, which is why he allows himself to ride that slippery slope toward fascism. Then, in the comics, civilians attack Johnny outside of a club. And they do this because of all the... anti-superhero sentiment. And Sue thinks that it's hypocritical for Reid to go around capturing a lot of

unregistered heroes who happen to be their closest friends. This results in Johnny and Sue joining Captain America's side, while the thing stays out of the conflict entirely. Civil War. And something similar probably would have happened in this film. After Johnny accidentally goes supernova and causes this incident, Reed could have lashed out at him for being so irresponsible with his powers and the damage that he's caused. Now, of course, we saw a similar inciting incident in Captain America's Civil War with Wanda and Lagos. But there's also a similar incident that happens in the comics. A group of heroes called The New Warriors were filming a reality TV series

fighting against a group of villains. And one of the villains explodes, killing 600 people on live TV. So this causes the government to crack down on superheroes. Now, in this movie, Johnny Going Supernova would have been the same inciting incident. And of course, read deep down would blame himself. After all, he is the reason the team has these powers. It was his rocket launch that led them into space, and he is the leader of the team, so he would ultimately hold himself responsible for any mistakes that Johnny would make.

Now, the guilt he would feel over this incident would have made Reed an outspoken supporter of the superhero registration act, much like how Tony Stark's guilt over the destruction and deaths caused by Ultron made him support the signing of the Socovia Accords. We need to be put in check, whatever form that takes on game. So Reed would be taking Tony's role in this film's version of Civil War. And maybe there could have been a scene similar to the one in Civil War. where Reid presents his reasons on why he supports the act to several other heroes, like some of the X-Men and Daredevil. And you can see why the majority of the mutants would immediately oppose registration.

The first X-Men movie opens with the government proposing to register mutants, and especially, like if Magneto was involved, I mean, he lived through the Holocaust, and he knows that registration is the first step toward genocide. Now, maybe both Professor X and the Beast would sympathize with Reed, and maybe they would even agree to registration if the agency was led by mutants like themselves, After all, in X-Men Last Stand, Beast was serving in the president's cabinet as the secretary of mutant affairs. But Magneto, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Daredevil would all stand their ground about not wanting the government to interfere with them saving people's lives. But Reed just wouldn't be able to let this go, because that's who Reed is.

While he's generally a loving husband to sue and a great father to his kids, he has tunnel vision when it comes to solving problems. Or what do you mean by that? Well, it's like Reed becomes so focused on solving a problem at any cost that it becomes his sole focus and nothing. nothing else exists. But it's usually Sue, Johnny, and Ben that help him stay focused and tethered to what's actually in front of him. Except in this situation, Reed would become so focused on figuring out ways to support the Registration Act that he would get into an argument with Sue over why he believes that he is right. Yeah, but if it's X-Men against Fantastic Four, wouldn't they just stay on the same team? Yeah, they could have, but I'm saying

it would have been a much more interesting movie if the X-Men and Fantastic Four teams would have been split against each other. It would have created a more interesting dynamic. So, Reed's tunnel vision would have caused Sue, Johnny, and eventually Ben, to join the underground group of unregistered heroes, like a lot of the X-Men and Daredevil. So, without the rest of his family around, Reed would start going to extreme measures. Extreme situations require extreme measures. Just like in the comics, he goes so far as to create a prison cell in the negative zone to lock up the unregistered heroes. Now, in the comics, he works with villains like the mad thinker, but maybe in the movie, he would ally himself with his greatest enemy, Dr. Doom.

I mean, imagine Doom, creating an army of Doom. Doom bought sentinel hybrids working alongside Reed Richards. Doom and Reed has always been two sides of the same coin. Doom is what Reed would become, without his family there to keep him tethered and to remind him of his humanity. And so, we would see Reed continue to slide down that slippery moral slope in the film,

being goaded forward by his arch enemy, Dr. Doom. Maybe they would even hire Deadpool to hunt down some of the heroes who refused to register. Wait a minute, Deadpool. Isn't he a good guy? Well, most of the time, but other times, Deadpool's an anti-hero and a mercenary. The other heroes look down on him because he hurts people for money. I know how to fuck people up for money, but you, you know how to save him.

And during Civil War in the comics, Deadpool is hired to hunt down any unregistered individuals. You don't want this. Unless you want to take a deep breath through your fucking forehead, I suggest you reconsider. So, while Reed's digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself, we would get to see how these other unregistered heroes work together. In certain comics, Sue has been revealed to have been an agent of shield. And this part of the film could highlight her tactical skills and her experience. on stealth missions. Maybe she'd help lead a team of heroes that includes Daredevil,

nightcrawler, and Quicksilver, all of whom can sneak around unseen and rescue other unregistered heroes on the run from Deadpool or the robots. And another team, led by Wolverine, could have him and The Thing and Colossus taking on those robots directly. And this could all build up to the movie's climax where we see the unregistered characters defeat the robots and confront Reed. Sue could beg Reed to see the error of his ways and listen to reason, but Reed tries explaining to her that he's so close to changing things for the better, to the work that he has been doing. Now one thing we do know about this script, according to the Hollywood Reporter, is that it would have featured a fight between Wolverine

and Reed Richards. So this is where Wolverine could call out Reed for losing his mind and tell him that he's actually the villain, which would then lead to a fight between the two of them. Now, according to the Hollywood reporter, this fight between Logan and Reed would have ended with Reed pinning Wolverine down, extending his hands until they're one molecule wide, and then using them as scissors to cut Wolverine's arms off. And what I like about this is that Wolverine skeleton is made out of the indestructible metal adamantium. So literally, the only way Reed could cut through it is at the molecular level. And in these moments, there's always something that has to show the heroes how far they have fallen. So maybe then Deadpool would take this

opportunity to fire a bullet at Sue, but Reed pushes her out of the way and takes the hit instead. And this would have mirrored a similar scene from the Civil War comic where Reed takes a bullet from Taskmaster that was meant for Sue. Or maybe Reed would simply realize that he has been turning into Dr. Doom, or that maybe Dr. Doom manipulated all of these events to begin with. The Hollywood Reporter's article then says that all the heroes would have made up. Everybody happy. And the post-credit scene would have teased a sequel involving a new threat. Scrolls. Oh, geez. That never leads to anything good. No, it doesn't, buddy. And God, do we know that from experience? Now, there is a chance that the film we just described was it anywhere near what Fox or

Zach Stenson Ashley Miller had in mind. But there's no doubt that it would have been different from Captain America's Civil War. In fact, that film probably wouldn't have been made if Fox went through with their own version of Civil War. Or why didn't Fox do it? Well, after Fox saw how successful X-Men First Class was, they decided to instead make a sequel to that film, Days of the Future Past. And after they lost the Daredevil rights to Marvel in 2012, they considered making a different X-Men versus Fantastic Four film based on a script by Warren Ellis. But that version never panned out either, and so the whole project was scrapped. And there's also the question of who would have even been in the cast. Hugh Jackman probably would have been along as Wolverine,

along with most of the original X-Men actors. But a new Daredevil would have been cast since Ben Affleck swore off returning to the role after the 2003 film. No force on earth or heaven could get me a... Back as Daredevil. It also would have been a huge stretch for the 2005-2007 Fantastic Forecast to come back.

Chris Evans had already signed on to play Captain America in the MCU, so Fox would probably have to reboot the Fantastic Four in order to have them meet the X-Men. And you also have to remember that in 2010, the only Deadpool we had was this one. The striker finally figured out how to shut you up. Fox wasn't going to give a solo Deadpool movie a green light until some mysterious person, nobody knows who, leaked the test footage to the public in 2014. And Fox struggled to get a Fantastic Four reboot off the ground.

They hired Josh Trank to do a gritty reboot of the franchise, but then got cold feet and reshot the third act. So this crossover movie could have depended on the Trank film being a hit. It seems like the movie was mostly a victim of bad timing. But if this movie had been a hit, then Fox's Marvel output would have looked very different. On one hand, we might have gotten a Deadpool movie sooner or had new Fantastic Four or Daredevil franchises.

But then again, there's a chance that we might not have gotten a movie like Logan. No! Okay, okay, I get it. Yeah, seems like things worked out for the best then. Yeah, I think so, buddy, but what do you guys think? Would you have liked to have seen Fox's version of Civil War? What would it have looked like? What hero matchups would you want to see fight each other? Let me hear your thoughts down in the comments below or at me on Twitter, Blue Sky Threads, or on our free-to-join Discord server.

And big shout out to Cole Albinder, who wrote this video, you can find his social links below. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Airy.