Big comic book cinematic universes seem to be where all the action and attention is these days, following the immense success of Marvel’s ongoing shared universe with their Avengers flagpole title. First, DC Comics took the leap with their in-production Batman vs Superman title that will launch off several DC mainstays into a shared universe, and recently Sony announced big plans to create a huge cinematic universe around the Spider-Man property.

Now, rumors are beginning to surface that 20th Century Fox may be doing the same thing around the two big franchises they still control – X-Men and Fantastic Four.

With X-Men: Days of Future Past coming out in 2014 and X-Men: Apocalypse already planned for 2016, in addition to the planned Fantastic Four reboot scheduled for 2015, this would make absolute sense. It is no secret that comic book writer Mark Millar was hired by Fox a few years back to help build out the Marvel universe controlled by the movie studio, and this would be a perfect opportunity for Millar to shape a storyline that would allow the Fantastic Four to be plugged right into the X-Men continuity.

But where are these rumors originating? Well, that’s the rub. The rumor is coming from a most unlikely place: a status update recently published by a financial advice website called The Motley Fool. Here’s what they say:

Motley Fool offers no sources to substantiate these claims, nor does it appear at the moment of any other websites offering back-up proof of this claim. This could just be wild conjecture on their part, or who knows, this could be some leaked information via 20th Century Fox to see what sort of fan reaction they’d get once the internet got a hold of it to see if it was worth pursuing.

So for now, file this away in the “that might be interesting!” rumor pile and let the massive speculation on what a Fantastic Four vs. X-Men movie might very well look like. In the meantime, if you are interested in the source material for the possible movie, the 4-issue comic Fantastic Four vs. X-Men is currently available in trade paperback form.

[Source via io9]