It goes without saying that Stan Lee has had a strange year, but it seems like he’s in a happier place now that he’s interacting with friends and colleagues more regularly.
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The Marvel legend was visited by artist and X-Force creator Rob Liefeld for an afternoon hangout, where the two talked about Lee’s love for the Deadpool movies. But Liefeld also informed him of the impending Fox and Disney deal, which will bring all but a few of the characters he helped create back under one cinematic roof.
Check it out on Liefeld’s Instagram post below!
“I informed him that Disney was bringing the Fox family of Marvel characters home, that they’d be reunited and he settled back in his chair and smiled ‘Thank you for telling me that.’”
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Marvel was facing financial troubles and sold off the movie rights to its most popular franchises in order to stay afloat. After gaining back some steam, they then launched their own studio with the properties they still owned, though at the time Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers were not seen to be as lucrative as Spider-Man and the X-Men, which belonged elsewhere.
Well, over a decade and multiple billion dollar franchises later, Marvel Studios re-wrote the game and has since become the dominant purveyor of superhero movies. And now, they’re getting access to most of their toys in the toy box.
The Walt Disney Company made a bid to acquire entertainment assets from 21st Century Fox late last year, and after a war with Comcast the media giant ended up on top. Last week, shareholders from both Fox and Disney approved the acquisition, which is expected to be finalized sometime in 2019.
This will effectively grant Disney ownership of many lucrative properties including The Simpsons, Avatar, and of course, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four movie rights.
Fox does have a few X-Men movies in the works, and they are all set to premiere in movie theaters in 2019, but there’s no doubt that Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is already dreaming up ways to incorporate these fan-favorite characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Stan Lee helped create the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and popular Avengers characters like Iron Man and Thor. The fact that all of these characters will soon be able to interact on the big screen should be enticing for both Lee and many Marvel fans around the world.