Bryan Singer Says That Fantastic Four/X-Men Crossover Movie is Probably Going to Happen

“Shared universe” used to be a phrase that only got tossed around in comic-book shops. It was the kind of phrase that would earn blank stares from the cool kids right before they shoved you into a locker. Now, all of those cool kids wear Avengers shirts and know that shared universes are the Next Big Thing in Hollywood, where sprawling franchises will tell various stories about various characters who happen to share the same world. This was popularized by Marvel Studios, but their arch-rival, 20th Century Fox, isn’t going to let them hog the spotlight. Oh, no. Director Bryan Singer has confirmed a rumor that’s been floating around for quite some time: The studio wants to spin-off the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into their own crossover movie.

For comic fans, this is nothing new. In the pages of Marvel comic books, the Mutants and Reed Richard’s team of adventurers have crossed paths many times. But since Fox owns the film rights to these characters and isn’t planning on playing nice with the Marvel Cinematic Universe anytime soon, they’re going to build their own mini-shared universe, comprised on the two Marvel families they do own.

Singer has been busy filming  X-Men: Apocalypse, but he talked about the game plan for this crossover while promoting the new “Rogue Cut” of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Speaking with Yahoo, he confirmed rumblings that have been floating around since before the new Fantastic Four movie went before cameras:

Those ideas are in play. That would be a natural match-up because they’re both ensemble films and there is a natural mechanism by which to do it.

When pressed for details on how they would crossover, Singer only offered a single vague hint:

It deals with time. That’s all I’m going to say.

So there you go. Somehow, the new Fantastic Four will brush shoulders with the X-Men in some form. How this will happen within the new X-Men movie continuity (which is currently set in the ’80s) is unknown, but this wouldn’t be the first time time travel has played a role in these movies. And hey, what do you know! Singer did just mention that this whole thing deals with time.

Of course, this crossover will only really happen if Fantastic Four isn’t a horrible bomb (and who knows what’s going on with this movie). And creative hiccups could derail the whole thing; the oh-so-serious looking Fantastic Four characters may not meld well with the increasingly goofy (in a good way!) X-Men. We’ll return to this conversation in a few weeks, after we know what Fantastic Four made in its opening weekend. We could end up in a surreal universe with two completely separate Marvel continuities on the big screen.