Latino Review has been around for a while and they've been knocking it out of the park recently with their Iron Man 3 scoops so I tend to believe them when they post interesting stories like this. According to the site, Sony and Marvel Studios were apparently very close to letting an element of the Spider-Man universe appear in Joss Whedon's mega [insert superlative adjective] film. Here's what was reported----
Imagine my surprise when I heard a rumor that the Oscorp Tower from Amazing Spider-Man was “this close” to becoming part of the sky line for Avengers. (Hint: pretty surprised)
Here’s the story – last week, The Amazing Spider-Man’s production designer J Michael Riva (he passed away recently after suffering a stroke at the age of 63). Not only did he design the Oscorp Tower for ASM, but he has a staggering resume of awesomeness including The Goonies, The Color Purple, A Few Good Men, Congo, Evolution, and the upcoming Django Unchained.
Oh – And the Iron Man movies.
That design overlap, and the stunning look of the Oscorp Tower (seriously stunning) was enough for Marvel Studios and Sony to have the discussion about inserting Oscorp into The Avengers skyline. The Unified Marvel Manhattan Skyline almost existed.
By the time the Oscorp building was fully designed, The Avengers digital Manhattan was already basically rendered and there was some up-conversion that needed to go down, so – for timing – it was scrapped.
BUT – Sony and Disney were going to let this happen. THAT’s the key thing here. Timing just didn’t work out.
In reality, this probably would've been one of those blink-and-you-miss-it type Easter eggs, similar to the
Arnim Zola reference in Captain America: The First Avenger. Still, it's interesting to hear that such dialogue is taking place between Sony and Marvel. Maybe something can be worked out earlier on for the next Avengers movie?