Will Spider-man, X-Men and Fantastic Four ever meet in the movie?

OK, so the mid-credits scene in The Amazing Spider-man 2 got the fans all excited because for a while some were living in a world where Spider-man and the X-Men could co-exist in a movie universe. And we know this was not the case now… but hope lives on, right? Well, squash that hope… squash it good.

Spidey producer Avi Arad has been chatting to IGN and made it more than clear that it’s not on the cards or at least not for a looooooong time: “I’m probably a little bit of the militant here. I think it will take a moment in which we’ve run out of ideas. There’s so much to tell about Spider-Man. There’s so much to tell about the Sinister Six. The relationship between Spider-Man and Venom will bring a whole other world in.

“Peter Parker is unique; he’s really different. He’s not an Avenger. He’s not an X-Man. He’s unique and we revere that. And we’d rather work really hard to have the right ideas than – you know in the toy business we used to make toys glow in the dark when they weren’t selling well and it gave at least another Christmas. We don’t need it yet.”

Producer Matt Tomlach points out that, sadly, it’s all business: “Avi always refers to that question as a stunt. If you were to do that, you know, Spider-Man in the Avengers is a stunt. And I get why everybody – you know, fans and audience members and movie goers – I understand it. Stunts can be cool but it’s also a business, and so the other side of the answer is they’re owned by different companies.

“There’s a ton left in Sony’s world; there’s a lot of business left because there’s a lot of story left. So for them to want to take this character and put it with Marvel and Disney is a huge undertaking and probably, as Avi’s saying, isn’t necessary until you feel like, ‘Wow, we’re sort of out of ideas. What should we do?’ And we’re far from out of ideas.”

On a similar theme, the Schmoes Know are claiming they have a source at Fox who says their X-Men and Fantastic will… not crossover as  “Fox wants director Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot to stand on its own without any help from the X-Men mutants, and hopefully do well enough to warrant multiple sequels. Fox may consider a crossover down the road, but there are no plans for it in the near future.”

However, they also remind us that Mark Millar, comic book guru, is a consultant on Fox’s Marvel movies and did confirm that even though they won’t crossover, they are a shared universe.