Before Marvel settled down with Disney, it had tumultuous affairs with several other studios. With Sony, for instance, it had a baby called the Spider-Man series. And Marvel's time with Fox produced several offspring, including film series based around the X-Men, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four. By the terms of that arrangement, Fox has the rights to make movies around those characters (plus Fantastic Four hanger-on the Silver Surfer) in perpetuity so long as it doesn't stop making them.
Thus, yesterday's announcement of the Marvel/Disney merger has now led toVariety's news that Fox will try again with a new Fantastic Four movie. So fans of watching that guy from The Shield walk around in a rubber suit and seeing Galactus rendered as a giant cloud should be happy, right? Not necessarily. Fox now plans to start over under the guidance of writer/producer Akiva Goldsman—because if there's one guy who knows how to get superheroes right, it's the screenwriter of Batman And Robin—who may or may not want to round up the old gang.
