We already know that the cinematic rights for the X-Men and the Fantastic Four will finally be returning home thanks to Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Surprisingly, these properties could be entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) sooner than we initially thought.

In Variety’s Playback Podcast, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige spilled the beans on when we could expect these previously Fox-owned characters in the MCU. He confirmed that X-Men and Fantastic Four movies could even begin developing in the first half of 2019.

“We’ve been told it’s looking very, very good and could happen in the first six months of next year,” said Feige. “The notion of the characters coming back is great. It’s nice when a company that created all these characters can have access to all those characters. It’s unusual not to. But in terms of actually thinking about it and actually planning things, we haven’t started that yet.”

However, he also clarified that the studio hasn’t been given the official green light to start integrating the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the MCU just yet. With no plans set in stone yet, it’ll be realistic to say that the earliest possible time we could be seeing these characters appearing in the MCU is sometime in 2020.

Fox will be releasing X-Men Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants, which will be the last two Marvel movies to be produced by the company. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios will be busy with three planned movies in 2019, which includes Captain Marvel followed by Avengers Endgame and Spider-Man Far From Home.

While I’m looking forward to seeing the Children of the Atom and Marvel’s First Family making their long-awaited debut in the MCU, Feige and the folks at Marvel Studios shouldn’t rush into it and make DCEU-like mistakes. Plan it right and take it slow, so that these properties can finally receive their due.