Talks Are Underway for X-Men Live-Action TV Series

One of the interesting technicalities about Marvel adaptation rights is that studios like Sony and Fox may control the movies featuring Spider-Man and the X-Men, but Marvel can use them on TV, which is why you’ll see animated shows and DTV movies that include character crossovers which would never (yet) happen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In theory, this could mean X-Men in a larger Marvel TV universe.

In practice, it does not – and the way the ABC shows tie into the movies has a lot to do with that.

“The characters from the X-Men franchise are with Fox on the feature side so we won’t be including Marvel characters that are at ABC with Disney,” [Fox Television Group chairman and CEO] Walden said of how the deal with Marvel will be structured. “This will be exclusively the franchise as it has existed at Fox.”

She presumably forgot to add “except for every character played by a famous movie star, which is most of them.”

I hasten to add that if the Deadpool movie doesn’t make the big bucks, he’d be great for a Netflix-type show, provided Marvel’s deal with them doesn’t preclude such. Because of how rights work, Marvel still has to sign off on any plans Fox may have in this direction, which could potentially sink the whole thing.

Unless they made a deal that included getting shared rights to Fantastic Four movies back? Nahh, that’s probably a SUPER-pipedream.

h/t Jim Dandeneau