As we’ve reported before, Fox has to get something done with Daredevil. Basically, if there’s not a movie in place for the character by October 10th, they have to give the rights back to Marvel.
Previously, I’ve guessed that Fox will decide that it’s not worth it and let Marvel take the character. Realistically, DD doesn’t fit in with their current plans: Marvel isn’t giving any new characters their own movie until 2014. Fox won’t see Marvel do anything with it for another three years.
But Marvel has decided to extend a generous offer to Fox: Give us back the Silver Surfer and Galactus, and we’ll give you more time with Matt Murdock.
Personally, I think Marvel is playing a sneaky game here. Fox is trying to turn DD into a hardcore ’70s-esque thriller with Joe Carnahan at the helm, but Carnahan, while a good director, is also pretty notorious for taking forever and taking on more projects than he can handle. He’s got Killing Pablo and White Jazz on the way.
Essentially, they know they can’t get back the Fantastic Four, so they’re trying to limit how successful the movies are going to be by trimming away as much of the mythos as they can. And they’re also hoping that even if they give Fox more time, they won’t be able to get it together and they’ll get Daredevil back anyway.
We’ll see what happens, but of the two franchises, I suspect Fox values the Fantastic Four a lot more.
image courtesy Fox
