In case you haven’t noticed, movies based off of comic books are big right now. I know. It’s something that you may have missed when ‘The Avengers’ brought in over a billion at the box office and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ taking in over $340 million in it’s opening week. Clearly Marvel properties seem to be doing well.

Sadly though, we live in a world where we can’t see people who are avenging, fantastic, amazing, or mutants all in one film. Why is that you may ask? Well it all comes down to movie rights.

Sony owns the Spider-Man film franchise and all of it’s characters, Fox owns both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, while Marvel Studios owns everything else from their comic division. While none of these studios are going to work together , at the very least I’d love to see the Fantastic Four revert back to Marvel or for them to work together. They would be a perfect addition to fall in line with what’s been worked on, at least on the villain end of things. Dr. Doom has long been at odds with The Avengers and both Galactus and Annihilus would fit amazingly well into the cosmic wave that Marvel has been slowly starting to incorporate. Oh well, we can dream!

While things look good for Marvel in sheer numbers, it does look like we won’t have Wolverine or Spider-Man showing up in a future Avengers movie, even though they are both currently team members. Even if people like Hugh Jackman want to see a huge crossover, it doesn’t mean it would happen.

But does it mean it can’t happen? Not at all. It’s just unlikely due to the rights issues. Joss Whedon understands this, but also has stated if there was a way around them, he’d be able to figure out a way to tie the universes together (and let’s be honest if anyone could figure it out it’s Whedon!) His view on things?

“I mean, yeah. You give me the parameters and I work with them. I have so many actors, I have so many characters to service that it’s not like I’m like, “Well this won’t work unless I have Spider-Man and Wolverine!” I’m just making my movie. Yeah, it’s cool to think about stuff like that and if we reached an era where those studios could cooperate on that level I think that would be super dope. Whenever you see somebody crossing over to something it gives it pop. Like “Murder She Wrote” and “Magnum [P.I.]” — great crossover. I got excited.”

So while he’d love to do a crossover film, he is more than happy to work with the current constrictions and it doesn’t really bother him. Let’s face it though, having the majority of the Marvel Universe to call from gives him a lot more leeway then the other companies out there. Of course, the mutants of Marvel and Spider-Man’s long list of allies and enemies give them both a lot of breathing room as well. When it comes to the director of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, Marc Webb has this own view:

“I love the idea. I think it’s fantastic. Unfortunately I don’t have control over that. I think the possibilities of that would be extraordinary.

Wolverine, Iron Man, those would be pretty fantastic. The thing is, you set up certain rules in the universe, you know what I mean? about what people are aware of, our universe…[Fox] built a history about mutants which does not coalesce with our world. So that presents a lot of difficulties and a lot of challenges that would be hard to overcome.”

Webb clearly thinks that each universe that has been created is pretty self sustaining, though he would be excited to see it happen. Honestly the mutant/hero issues have long been brought up as a hard pill to swallow in the Marvel Universe. Why only hate mutants when there are other super powered people out there? There are a variety of ways to look at this but one thing is for certain – we’re not getting a multi-studio Marvel movie crossover anytime in the near future.

Still, it’s nice to dream. If we’re going to dream, I nominate Joss to be the one who is able to put it all together. With his vision and understanding of the Marvel Universe, it’d be the only way to do it justice. That being said, there are far too many characters at that point to give everyone proper screen time.

What do you think fellow Marvel fans? Should they attempt a full on Marvel crossover in the view of an event such as ‘The Infinity Guantlet’ or would that finally be too much?

Sources: Comic Book Resources, Collider.