Good afternoon, True Believers. As your attorney I advise you to go to the nearest liquor store, purchase your poison of choice, and steel yourselves for a good ol' fashioned pour out. On Friday, January 11th, 2019, "A Twitter influencer and writer for SuperBroMovies," Daniel Richtman, tweeted that he'd received word of Fox's cancellation of the studio's DR. DOOM, GAMBIT, and X-FORCE movie projects. Naturally, Richtman's proclamation caught the attention of Deadpool and X-Force co-creator Rob Liefeld, who responded with the following tweet:
Those of you who're prepared to flip tables over the matter can look toward the Disney/Fox merger for a direction to hurl your unbridled fury. With the deal expected to be finalized by March, the rights to X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and all of their subsequent characters will be returned to Marvel Studios. While this would allow Kevin Feige to integrate those characters into the MCU proper, it also means that that Simon Kinberg's long-gestating DARK PHOENIX and Josh Boone's NEW MUTANTS will be the final two Marvel films from Fox. Such as that being the case, we're now being lead to believe that the Noah Hawley-directed DOCTOR DOOM movie, Channing Tatum's on-again-off-again GAMBIT solo project, and Drew Goddard's X-FORCE appear to be dead in the water. However, according to Richtman's tweet, X-FORCE still has two months to roll into production, though the liklihood of that is quite grim.
While at one time Goddard's X-FORCE spinoff seemed like a done deal, thanks in-part to the tremendous success of both DEADPOOL and DEADPOOL 2, both Hawley's DOCTOR DOOM and Tatum's GAMBIT projects had yet to make any significant dent in their production proceedings. For now, there's still a chance that Ryan Reynold's Deadpool could find himself inducted into Marvel's Cinematic Universe, though how the studio plans to introduce any of the characters they stand to acquire remains to be seen.
Are you bummed about the prospect of these films being cancelled? Personally, I was really looking forward to seeing what Hawley could do with DOCTOR DOOM. His work on Marvel and FX's LEGION has been exemplary, and I would have jumped at the chance to witness his version of Marvel's disfigured mad scientist and magic wielding villain.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.