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The story of how Marvel and Fox made a deal to save Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

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One of the downsides to Marvel selling off the film rights of their biggest character families before Disney purchased them, is that it gets confusing trying to remember who owns who, even for them.

When James Gunn began working on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, he had Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell’s character) play an integral part, not just in the story, but in Marvel’s cosmic universe. At no point did he consider the fact that Marvel didn’t own the film rights to the character, because really, why would you want Ego the Living Planet?

But in reality, those rights belonged to Fox and Gunn had no back up plan.

“Yes, this is true! When I first pitched Ego as Quill’s father, I THOUGHT we owned the character. After I had worked out a very elaborate story with Ego the Living Planet as a very important part of the Marvel cosmic universe, I learned that we actually didn’t own the character,” said Gunn on Facebook. “I had no back up plan, and it would be nearly impossible to just drop another character in.”

In a moment of serendipity, Fox came to Marvel with a question of their own. They wanted to use the mutant Negasonic Teenage Warhead (NTW) in their Deadpool movie but wanted to change almost everything about her, including her powers and needed Marvel’s permission to do so. Marvel proposed a trade: changing NTW’s powers for the right to use Ego in their film.

The agreement came to light earlier this week and has had many fans speculating: is this the beginning of a bigger deal between Marvel and Fox? Could we see the X-Men fighting alongside the Avengers at some point in the near future?

Personally, I think that’s still of the table but it is fun to think about.

Do you think this agreement will open the door for bigger crossovers in the future?