We could be weeks or months away from a merger of the film studios of Disney and Fox but a new story in The Hollywood Reporter says the latter is showing no signs of slowing down their superhero production in anticipation of a major consolidation. In fact, THR’s sources say the studio is moving at “100 miles per hour” on their Marvel properties, which include X-Men spinoffs like New Mutants, Deadpool 2, and X-Force. 

At the moment, Fox doesn’t have concrete plans for their other big Marvel series, Fantastic Four, probably because their last attempt at the franchise, Josh Trank’s 2015 was a titanic disaster. But apparently the studio is exploring some spinoffs in the Fantastic Four universe of characters, in much the same way they’ve successfully branched off their X-Men saga into a host of other side franchises. Per THR, the FF developments include a “secret” project for the Silver Surfer:

Fox has several other "secret" projects in development, including a Silver Surfer stand-alone feature that is being written by comics creator Brian K. Vaughn.

The Silver Surfer was one of the few bright spots of the second Fantastic Four movie from the first Fantastic Four franchise (headache!), Rise of the Silver Surfer. As performed by Doug Jones (and voiced by Laurence Fishburne), the Surfer was beautiful and mysterious and powerful; together, they really nailed the otherworldly nature of the character of old Stan Lee and John Buscema comics. The rest of that film was a mess, but it really got the Surfer right, and given how many times he has headlined his own solo comics series, it seems like there’s plenty of potential there for his own film. If Brian K. Vaughn, an incredible comics creator in his own right (Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, just to name my two personal favorites), is involved, the sky really is the limit. (Yes, that was a Silver Surfer joke. Sorry.)

THR’s report also mentions a standalone Doctor Doom film from Legion’s Noah Hawley that was already announced last year is still moving forward at Fox as well. So there could be a ton of new superhero projects coming from the studio in the years ahead ... assuming Disney doesn’t eventually put a stop to some of them.

Gallery - Fox Franchises That Could Have New Life Under Disney:

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