Ever since Marvel’s little “experiment” succeeded to the tune of $1.5 billion with The Avengers, the other film studios have been working to craft comic book universes of their own.  Warner Bros. owns the DC properties and is building towards Justice League, Sony Pictures only controls the Spider-Man series but is doing its darndest to build that into a larger franchise with Sinister Six and Venom movies, and 20th Century Fox actually owns a rather large library of Marvel comics properties, including X-Men, Fantastic Four, X-Force, Deadpool, and New Mutants.

Steve recently caught up with Simon Kinberg at WonderCon in anticipation of X-Men: Days of Future Past, and during the course of their conversation the writer/producer also discussed Fox’s large-scale plans for its Marvel comics properties, as well as the possibility of delving into television and creating an R-rated Deadpool movie.  Hit the jump to read on.

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With Marvel Studios showing great success in crossing over its various comics properties, Steve asked Kinberg is Fox is now working towards a similar goal:

“Yeah, they definitely understand what they have now in a way that—having worked on the X-Men Fox movies since 2003, [it was a] different regime, really different culture inside the studio [back then], but outside the studio like you say, the juggernauts, the big movies of every summer are [now] superhero movies.  We’re gonna have three big superhero movies in the span of like a month and a half between Cap 2, Spider-Man, and us.  So Fox does understand that they are sitting on this massive universe with the X-Men, also with Fantastic Four obviously.  But they definitely have a sense of it and there’s a real interest and appetite for how to explore and expand that world into other movies, into spinoffs, into different time periods, the whole gamut.”

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With Marvel also delving into television with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a series of Netflix shows, Steve also asked Kinberg if TV was something Fox was thinking about as well:

“We’re still in this place of figuring out what the future of the franchise will be, but when you look at S.H.I.E.L.D. to some extent and what Marvel is doing now with Daredevil and other shows on Netflix, it makes sense to tell some of these stories in TV partly because there’s just not enough screens to do all these characters, and also because the serialized format of comic books is better suited for TV.  Because that’s it, every week you come back to the same characters different story, and in comic books every week it’s the same characters, different story.

I think what [Fox is] seeing now is with the proliferation of new kinds of visual and special effects, there’s a way to make these stories that doesn’t cost $300 million every time you have to make a huge movie.”

Since the notion of an R-rated Deadpool movie has been kicking around for years, Steve also asked Kinberg if Fox might be game for finally stepping outside the box and producing an R-rated comics adaptation.  He admitted that the studio is still figuring out its larger plans with regards to its Marvel properties, but said he personally would like to see that iteration of Deadpool come to fruition:

“Yeah, it makes sense to me.  Genuinely it’s early phases, early days, but if you’re gonna do a Deadpool movie, I think you’ve gotta do a hard-R, darker movie and he is the perfect character to do it with.”

Watch the video interview below, followed by a transcript of the conversation.  Look for more with Kinberg on Collider soon.

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Collider: Has Fox in the last six months acknowledged, “Wait a minute, we have New Mutants, X-Force, Deadpool, we need to do more with this?”

SIMON KINBERG: Yeah, they definitely understand what they have now in a way that—having worked on the X-Men Fox movies since 2003, so over 10 years now, different regime, really different culture inside the studio, too, in fairness to them, but outside the studio like you say, the juggernauts, the big movies of every summer are superhero movies.  We’re gonna have three big superhero movies in the span of like a month and a half between Cap 2, Spider-Man, and us.  So Fox does understand that they are sitting on this massive universe with the X-Men, also with Fantastic Four obviously.  But they definitely have a sense of it and there’s a real interest and appetite for how to explore and expand that world into other movies, into spinoffs, into different time periods, the whole gamut.

Do you think any of these characters Fox is thinking about a TV show?

KINBERG: We’re still in this place of figuring out what the future of the franchise will be, but when you look at S.H.I.E.L.D. to some extent and what Marvel is doing now with Daredevil and other shows on Netflix, it makes sense to tell some of these stories in TV partly because there’s just not enough screens to do all these characters, and also because the serialized format of comic books is better suited for TV.  Because that’s it, every week you come back to the same characters different story, and in comic books every week it’s the same characters, different story.

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If it was affordable, of course you’d put X-Men on TV.

KINBERG: And that’s the challenge.  I think what they’re seeing now is with the proliferation of new kinds of visual and special effects, there’s a way to make these stories that don’t cost $300 million every time you have to make a huge movie.

I’m very curious about Fox doing what Marvel and Sony won’t do, which is tell an R-rated comic book Marvel movie.  What are the chances of Fox doing a $30-$35 million Deadpool R-rated, and putting it out and there and almost telling fans, ‘We’re gonna test this.  If it does well, we can make more R-rated movies.’  Because it seems like there’s a lot of interest in the character.

KINBGERG: Yeah, it makes sense to me.  Genuinely it’s early phases, early days, but if you’re gonna do a Deadpool movie, I think you’ve gotta do a hard-R, darker movie and he is the perfect character to do it with.