Did Fox Delay ‘Dark Phoenix’ to Crossover With the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Ever since Disney agreed to purchase 21st Century Fox, all Marvel fans have been able to talk about is the eventual appearance of the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Well, on Friday afternoon, another interesting move has these same fans wondering if the crossover could happen sooner rather than later.

Just days after the first trailer for Fox’s upcoming X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix, arrived online, Fox announced that the release date for the film had once again been pushed back. Instead of hitting theaters on February 14, 2019, Dark Phoenix will now bow on June 7th.

Of course, June 7th is a little over a month after May 3rd, which is when Avengers 4 arrives in theaters.

Yes, it’s a long shot that these things have any correlation, but just think about the possibilities for a second.

The Disney purchase of Fox has gone through and is currently waiting for approval. That could take quite a while, but there is also a chance it’s done by next summer. If that’s the case, Marvel is free to include any of the X-Men characters. Avengers 4 is going to alter the entire fabric of the MCU going forward, which would make for a good time to introduce mutants into the fold.

Speaking of time, Avengers 4 is also going to include elements of time travel into the story. Dark Phoenix takes place in 1992, and releasing it after Avengers 4 could be an easy way to at least reference the Earth-shattering events that take place.

We also need to look at the other announcements that were made on Friday, as one of them helps support this theory just a bit. Along with the shifting of Dark Phoenix‘s release date, it was revealed that a PG-13 version of Deadpool 2 would be released into theaters. Sure, this could just be a money grab, trying to sell the R-rated product to a younger audience. Then again, there’s also the idea this could be related to the Disney sale. Deadpool is easily the biggest money-maker in the X-Men franchise, and he’s the one character that Disney likely wouldn’t want to recast. The issue would be figuring out whether or not this R-rated Deadpool could fit in with the family-friendly MCU.

What better way than to release a PG-13 version of the character into theaters to see how he does?

Obviously this is all a stretch, and these decisions likely have nothing to do with the Disney deal, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on as the final approval of the purchase approaches.

Do you think Dark Phoenix and Avengers 4 could crossover in any way? Let us know in the comments!