via New Line Cinema/Sony/20th Century Fox
It is seldom a good thing for a company or conglomerate to have an insurmountable share of a single market, but the introduction and unstoppable expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and his current Multiverse Saga may see Kevin Feige’s monolithic franchise monopolize almost 25 years of superhero cinema.
The MCU is already the biggest, most popular and highest-grossing movie series of all time, and ever since it was released to the small screen via a jam-packed slate of Disney Plus Originals, the mere mention of the word “variant is enough to establish that almost every major Marvel Comics property that has come along since the late 1990s can technically fall under Kevin Feige’s umbrella.
Even if we ignore the 616 universe entirely, the respective appearances of Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in Doctor strange in the multiverse of madness Y Deadpool 3 will set them up as alternate versions of the same characters from other timelines, but because they look the same as their 20th Century Fox counterparts, that would place all 13 X Men films as part of the broader MCU multiversal spectrum.
Ditto for the entire slate of Netflix shows after Charlie Cox reiterated that Daredevil: Born Again is a total reboot, and since the rights to Man Without Fear, as well as other big names including Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and Blade, are under Feige’s control, then Tim Story’s 2000s FF movies, Ben Affleck’s Matt Murdock, Nicolas Cage’s Johnny Blaze, and Wesley Snipes’ Daywalker all land in the same boat.
Hell, even the post-credits scenes of Morbius combined with Spider-Man: No Way Home he highlighted that all of Sony’s past, present, and future projects are also tangentially tied to the MCU. However, thanks to complex rights issues, we can at least let Ang Lee Helmet out of the loop… for now.
