We were so close to getting Deadpool, Wolverine, Sue Storm, and Daredevil in the same movie.

Before The Avengers gave Hollywood movies a permanent case of “team-up fever” in 2012, 20th Century Fox was ahead of the curve the year before — developing a movie that would have brought the X-Men together with the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Deadpool for the first time ever on the big screen. X-Men: First Class co-writer Zack Stentz recently revealed details about the project on Kevin Smith’s Fatman Beyond podcast and our collective minds were properly blown.

“My ex-partner and I, when we were working at Fox and we were working on X-Men: First Class, we did a secret movie for them,” Stentz revealed. “I can’t tell you what the plot was, but I can tell you that it used all of the characters — all of the Marvel characters — that Fox had at the time in 2011. It used the X-Men. It used the Fantastic Four. It used Daredevil. It used Deadpool. Daredevil was still at Fox at the time.

Stentz also commented that, at the time, Fox was itching for a major comic book movie tentpole — especially one that could compete with Marvel Studios’ bourgeoning MCU. In 2011, Marvel had just released Captain America: The First Avenger, which paved the way for Joss Whedon’s first Avengers movie. Fox still had the feature film rights to Daredevil during that time, and they also had a very exciting and outside-the-box choice for this team-up movie’s director.

“We almost had Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) directing it, which would’ve been so cool,” added Stentz. Unfortunately, Greengrass directing the film never happened because the filmmaker “had another project to do instead.” Possibly the 2013’s Oscar-nominated Captain Phillips.

Greengrass isn’t a stranger to comic book movie adaptations. In 2005/2006, he was attached to bring a version of the DC/Vertigo comic Watchmen to the big screen for Paramount and Warner Bros., based on a script by X2 co-writer David Hayter.

Stentz admitted that he and former writing partner Ashley Miller finished the script for this untitled team-up. Now, with all of Marvel’s big marquee heroes back under their control under the Disney empire, here’s hoping this script — or a version of it — gets dusted off in time for Marvel’s Phase Four.

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