UPDATE: Reports are coming in that the rumours have been denied, as expected, by Fox. The story is still developing and we’ll see how it plays out.

We wondered yesterday what Marvel were getting out of allowing Fox to move forward with two new X-Men TV shows (which they surprisingly announced on Marvel.com along with the reveal that Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb will serve as an executive producer on both Hellfire and Legion), and if a new report is to be believed, it’s the movie rights to the Fantastic Four!

This means that Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and The Thing will all join the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside classic villains and supporting characters Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and Doctor Doom. Oh, and here’s the kicker; Fantastic Four is apparently one of the 2020 Marvel movies, just like we speculated in our recent look at those releases.

According to Den of Geek, Marvel gave Fox permission to make those X-Men TV shows in exchange for the rights to Fantastic Four, and this is something which makes a lot of sense.

Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot grossed less domestically in nine weeks than the original did in its opening weekend, and has been a flop overseas as well. In fact, Fox look set to lose upwards of $100 million on the movie (which received unanimously negative reviews).

As a result, you can appreciate why they’d rather launch a bunch of potentially very successful TV shows instead of trying and failing to revive the franchise with a sequel or a crossover with the X-Men which runs the risk of tainting that far more popular series.

The Fantastic Four franchise returning to Marvel has a huge amount of potential. Not only are they undoubtedly best suited to making these characters work on the big screen, but the mind boggles as to what Kevin Feige could do with a massive villain like Galactus…