The SPIDER-MAN Movieverse Could Cross Over Into ‘THE AVENGERS’. Jesus Christ, No.
The Spider-Man and Avengers movie universes could collide, and goddamn I say no.
Play List:
The comic-book revelation of the week: the Stark Tower and the Oscorp Tower almost shared a Manhattan skyline in Marvel’s “The Avengers” earlier this summer. What does that mean for those not fluent in poindexter-ese? It means the events from Columbia’s upcoming “The Amazing Spider-Man” almostcrossed over into the same New York universe where “The Avengers” took place.
How’s that? Film website Latino Review sat down with “The Amazing Spider-Man” producers Avi Arad andMatthew Tolmach this past weekend to discuss the upcoming Spidey reboot as directed by Marc Webb(“(500) Days of Summer”), and during their conversation the duo revealed that Marvel Studios andSony/Columbia had some early discussions of uniting the Marvel Manhattan skyline in one universe. How so? By including the Oscorp Tower (Harry Osborn being the CEO of Oscorp, who eventually turns into the Green Goblinvillain from the ‘Spider-Man’ films) in “The Avengers” in the same Manhattan skyline that already included Stark Tower (Tony Stark, aka “Iron Man”).
So what happened? Apparently by the time the Oscorp building was fully designed for “The Amazing Spider-Man” (by legendary production designer J. Michael Riva, who passed away this weekend), the digital skyline in “The Avengers” had already been rendered. In short, it was too late. And while it seems like this is news that only man-children who speak Klingon or own comic-book underoos would care about, it is interesting for the very fact that it’s something Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures had agreed on.
One must remember, Marvel’s characters and properties are scattered over several different movie studios.20th Century Fox owns all mutant characters (which means all “X-Men” films and that entire world), Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Daredevil, and Deadpool. Sony/Columbia owns Spider-Man, Venom, and Ghost Rider and Marvel Studios essentially has the rest of all the major characters including the entire Avengers team, Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Power Pack, etc.
Now sharing the characters is almost a business impossibility. For example: Sony/Columbia owns the rights to the Spider-Man universe, spent gazillions of dollars for those rights and will never sell them over to Marvel even though with Marvel’s successful run of comic book films, many fans would love them own everything and cross over and cross-pollinate their characters in any way they see fit. Because of the way rights work, this will likely never happen. It doesn’t really behoove one studio to “lend” a character to another studio unless they’re getting a significant chunk of the profits and even then a business deal like that, again, would likely be a contract impossibility/headache.
The Play List article I’ve referenced is a bit dismissive of the possibility of an actual crossover, but other sites haven’t played it so cool. To me, it almost makes too much sense to cut through the red tape and get it done. Ugh! Despite the last ten years or so of mediocre (shots fired!) storylines by Brian Michael Bendis arguing to the contrary, Spider-Man isn’t a fucking Avengers. Not in my world, buddy! Neither is Wolverine.