So that didn’t take long. The Fantastic Four reboot is currently going over like a lead balloon at the box office and the bad press that has been hounding the film since production hasn’t stopped with the film’s release. But what about the already announced Fantastic Four 2? There’s now a rumor going about that Fox is going pull Fantastic Four out of that release window and give to another superhero they have much higher hopes for: Deadpool.
As is standard with movie studios, and even more standard with the big-budget properties, Fox already had their major release dates staked out for the next couple of years. That schedule included a sequel to this weekend’s Fantastic Four with a planned release date of June 9, 2017. The Daily Superhero has the rumor that the conversation is already going on behind closed doors that Fox is looking to make a change. While Fantastic has not been so, the buzz around Deadpool has been everything the studio could want. So, why not give that sequel date to Deadpool instead?
The one major problem could be that it may be too difficult to turn around Deadpool that quickly. Even if Fox is already in the early stages of planning a sequel, they would need to shift things into a fairly high gear to meet a summer 2017 release date. They’d likely need to begin filming no later than June of 2016, which is only four months after the first film would hit theaters. In short, they’d need to commit to Deadpool 2 now to make that release date. And, on the off-chance that something goes wrong and Deadpool doesn’t succeed as expected, then Fox isn’t in any better position than they’d be if they had gone ahead and made a Fantastic Four 2. Having already made a bet on Fantastic they may not be willing to do that here, no matter how much positive press they're getting.
Still, this isn’t the first talk of a Deadpool sequel we’ve seen. There’s already been some talk about bringing a classic Deadpool character into a sequel if it happens. This could be a sign that there have been at least some preliminary discussions. With the future uncertain for the X-Men franchise after Apocalypse, at Hugh Jackman making his final bow as Wolverine soon, Fox may be looking to put most of their superhero eggs in the Deadpool basket (at which point Deadpool will throw the eggs at your house and then run away).
Either way it’s looking to be a good bet that Fantastic Four won’t need that 2017 release date. Unless somebody starts looking at another bloody reboot of course.
