Disney's acquisition of Fox will leave some exciting films canceled. The purchase is expected to close on January 1st, 2019, with the Mouse House is reportedly planning to release all completed Fox Films, but this leaves a whole slate of franchise films with uncertain futures. Equal parts anticipated by some for the promise of Marvel getting the X-Men back, and feared by others, with accusations of monopolization, we still have a lot to learn about the reality of post-acquisition Fox, but there will certainly be change.
The tragedy of the conglomerate takeover is that with many films’ futures resting on a knife-edge, should they fail to go into production - or continue production - thousands of jobs could be lost. In addition, a bevy of healthy franchises could find themselves dead in the water under the control of Disney.
Read More: What Disney Will Do With Fox's Movies, Franchises & Studios
Fox has a number of films on the docket that have built-in fanbases and general audiences who’d be willing to shell out the cash to see them on the big screen. Using the January 1st deal date as a guideline, and considering the reports that Disney will only release the films that are completed, how many movies will be lost in the corporate shuffle?
- This Page: X-Men Movies That Won't Be Made
- Page 2: Other Fox Movies That Could Be Canceled
Gambit
The solo Gambit movie has been in development hell since 2014. Channing Tatum has been attached as the lead for some time, but as the revolving door of directors keeps on swinging and Fox prepares to hand the keys to the X-kingdom back to Marvel Studios, Remy LeBeau's chances of seeing the light of day seem slimmer than ever (in spite of producer Simon Kinberg continuing to talk about the movie as if its still happening).
Once the Disney/Fox merger goes through in the new year, the likelihood is that finished films - Dark Phoenix and New Mutants - will be released, but everything else shelved as Kevin Feige & co. over at Marvel Studios decide how to best integrate the characters into the MCU. When this does happen - and it likely won't be for a number of years, as Phase 4 has already been planned out for the MCU - its a fair assumption that Gambit would be pretty low on the list of characters to focus.
Related: How The Fox Purchase Will Affect Existing Disney Properties
While the character has a small but loyal following, and Channing Tatum is a big draw to the project, there are other more popular characters (like the one with the funny hair and the claws) who would be higher priorities for Marvel Studios to debut. That said, given that he's not been used by the Fox series, Channing Tatum's take on Gambit could still appear as part of a bigger X-Men team in the MCU.
The only character who might survive this transaction and continue to immediately anchor his own solo films is Deadpool, as his box office receipts speak for themselves - and the character already stands apart from the rest of X-Men continuity, as a meta-textual satire. That, however, doesn't bode well for...
X-Force
With Fox's proposed X-Force film - spinning out of Deadpool 2 - featuring so many X-characters, its unlikely that Kevin Feige and the folks over at Marvel Studios will continue this line of thinking alongside Deadpool.
X-Force has yet to really pick up any steam with its pre-production, as writer/director Drew Goddard was awaiting the release of his current feature Bad Times at the El Royale before turning his attention to the black ops X-Men tale. It's a shame that production hadn't moved further along a bit faster, as now the movie definitely doesn't come under Disney's mandate to release all films that have been completed.
The concept of the team has always been a great one, as a selection of X-characters who are willing to go the extra mile and do the dirty deeds that the X-Men can't in order to keep mutantkind safe. Several characters were smartly introduced in Deadpool 2, only to be hilariously and violently killed off one-by-one at the outset of their first mission. The expectation was for the surviving set to star, but that hinged on the wider X-Men universe surviving to be riffed on.
Read More: What Will Happen To Fox's R-Rated Franchises Under Disney?
It's far more likely that Marvel Studios will simply scupper the plans while they figure out to do with their Merry Mutants' return home.
Page 2 of 2: Non-X-Men Movies That May Be Canceled
Kingsman 3 & Its Spinoffs
Kingsman: The Golden Circle made $411 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million, so it's no surprise that Fox was gearing up for not only a threequel, but a prequel and a spinoff show as well. Said prequel was touted by director Matthew Vaughn to be named Kingsman: The Great Game and be set at the turn of the 20th Century following the origins of the organization. The director also laid out plans for an additional spinoff in the form of a film to follow the U.S.-based equivalent to the Kingsmen - the Statesmen - although nothing had been confirmed since Vaughn's announcement of his plans.
Related: Breaking Down The New Kingsman Shared Universe
Considering a 2019 release date has been announced for Kingsman 3 and pre-production underway, there's a small chance Fox will get the project far enough along before the purchase and Disney will continue to shepherd the nascent production along. The film' start date of January 2019, which makes it one of the tightest involved.
What that does seem to scupper is The Great Game and subsequent Kingsman films. The future of the R-rated franchise under the Mouse House is still unclear, and the future of any movies beyond Kingsman 3 will rest on a much bigger decision.
McScam
Having caused a ruckus after one of the most intense bidding-wars in Hollywood history, Jeff Maysh's article exposing former cop Jerry Jacobson's elaborate scam of the McDonald's Monopoly game was finally bought up and optioned by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and their production company, Pearl Street Pictures, in conjunction with 20th Century Fox.
The film follows Jacobson's theft of an estimated $24 million worth of McDonald's prizes, in a bizarre true story which at one point involved the Colombo Mafia. When the deal went through, Affleck was scheduled to direct, Damon to star, and Fox to distribute.
The deal only went through in mid-August of this year, so its unlikely the film will make it to production any time soon, as presumably a script still has to be adapted from the original article (by Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick).
With the turnover between Disney and Fox happening so soon in January, its unclear what the fate of the McScam movie will be. Considering the hefty price tag attached to optioning the article - $350,000 with an extra $1 mil on top if the movie makes it to the big screen - it'll likely be Affleck and Damon's highest priority to get this movie made. Disney could consider whether pre-production should continue considering the buzz around the film, but whether they do or not is going to be influenced by so many different factors that it's impossible to determine whether we'll actually see this film anytime soon.
It's a shame, because Affleck-directed crime films like Argo and The Town are usually quite special, and the gonzo plot of McScam easily lends itself to cinema. While its unlikely we'll hear anything further from this project, here's hoping audiences get the opportunity to see Matt Damon feverishly counterfeiting McDonald's Monopoly tabs.
More: How The Disney Purchase Has Already Impacted Fox
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