Live-Action Taskmaster Rights Appear To Have Reverted To Marvel Studios

The live action rights to Marvel Comics villain Taskmaster have reverted back to Marvel Studios, sources tell ComicBook.com

The issue arose recently when Deadpool director Tim Miller made a comment about which other characters he’d like to see Wade Wilson battle on screen. Here’s the quote one more time.

“I’d love to see Deadpool fight Batman – no, I’m just kidding, that’s not even in the Marvel family! I’d love to see Deadpool go up against Taskmaster who’s another Marvel total fuckin’ badass. But if I was to stay inside the Fox family, I would like to see him fight X-23, the female Wolverine. The female clone of Wolverine.”

Heroic Hollywood picked up on how Miller’s statement about staying “inside the Fox family” with X-23 implies that Taskmaster is not a part of that family. It’s an interesting implication because at one point Fox did have the rights to Taskmaster, and tried to develop a live action project for him that never quite got off the ground. As HH pointed out, this would seem to unofficially imply that Taskmaster’s rights are no longer with Fox.

ComicBook.com’s own sources tell us that this is true, and that the Taskmaster rights reverted to Marvel Studios at the same time as the rights to Daredevil.

We’ve previously speculated that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Grant Ward may eventually become the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Taskmaster, but recent events in that show seem to suggest that’s not the case. Could he be used a villain for the Defenders on Netflix instead? Seems like it would be a good fit.