Bryan Singer confirms discussions of an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover

Fans were happy when director Bryan Singer used X-Men: Days of Future Past as an opportunity to clean house after several unloved entries in the franchise wrecked havoc with characters and continuity. Now it seems Singer might perform that same function on the yet-to-be-released Fantastic Four, using that most Marvel of tactics: An X-Men and Fantastic Four crossover.

“Those ideas are in play,” he told Yahoo! Movies. “That would be a natural match-up because they’re both ensemble films and there is a natural mechanism by which to do it. It deals with time. That’s all I’m going to say.”

Some might wonder if the upcoming Josh Trank-rebooted Fantastic Four movie, which had rumors of a troubled production and has already drawn the ire of comic fans for playing fast-and-loose with the beloved residents of the Baxter Building, will do enough justice to the property in order to sustain a franchise. Even Singer is cautiously skeptical about how the new movie will be received.

“We’ll have to see how the films turn out,” he said of both Fantastic Four and his own upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, which also softly reboots the X-Men with younger versions of the core team. “To just say you’re going to do it would be a mistake, you have to see how the films evolve before you make that decision to completely commit to that.”

Being that the two movies share a screenwriter/producer in the form of the ever-prolific Simon Kinberg, it makes sense that a synergistic pow-wow between him, Singer, producer Lauren Schuler-Donner and even 20th Century Fox may have taken place, although we’ll have to wait until the new FF bows on August 7 to know if these early discussions shall bear fruit.

Said to be the conclusion of a trilogy started with X-Men: First Class and continued into X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Bryan Singer directed X-Men: Apocalypse is set for release on May 27, 2016.