Prior to discussions of him voicing Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, actor Vin Diesel revealed sometime back in September that he had met with Marvel about a 2016 intellectual property as well as something so big he couldn't talk about because it involved a "merging of brands in a way." While the Fast and the Furious star added that it was "way, way, way, way, way down the road," many assumed he was referring to The Avengers teaming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Well, Slash Film managed to ask Kevin Feige about this highly-expected "merge," to which he instantly replied "I have no idea what [Diesel] is talking about." But when the interviewer pressed the Marvel honcho about the actual possibility that The Avengers and Guardians will eventually link up on-screen, Feige said, "Look, here’s what I always thought was cool. I think it’s cool that the characters exist in the same universe some times and it would be cool to establish a movie universe where that same thing is true." He continued, "The fact that we’ve done that now and the fact that the audience, and not just fans… We do small friends and family screenings on all of our movies and we can see on our cards people are like “I love the references to the other movies” and then you flip the cards around and go “Which other movies have you seen of ours?” “None.” “What?” So there is something that audiences respond to that just inherently is neat, probably because it doesn’t happen very often and so as we go forward with all the characters… I love the notion that anybody could pop up in anybody else’s movie as long as it doesn’t get distracting or undermine whatever specific story we are telling."
Nonetheless, Thor: The Dark World has already set up a major Macguffin that could (and likely will) bring The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy together, and against the Mad Titan Thanos; the Infinity Gauntlet. When asked if it is safe to assume all will unveil in Phase 3, Feige replied:
"We are always sort of building towards additional things and what’s fun about that reveal for fans and for fans of comics and fans of movies is I think that’s the first time that we reveal that The Tesseract is an infinity stone, that the aether is an infinity stone. You may see another infinity stone in Guardians and certainly fans of the comics know what one can do with all of those stones if, god forbid, they get them and with Thanos showing up at the end of The Avengers, he plays a part in Guardians and leads us towards at least one potential future."
The Avengers (2012) concept art of Thanos by artist Andy Park
“Guardians of the Galaxy,” the next epic adventure from Marvel Studios, is directed by James Gunn from his screenplay, with a story by Nicole Perlman and Gunn, and the film will introduce audiences to a whole new side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The all-star cast includes Chris Pratt as Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser, Michael Rooker as Yondu, Karen Gillan as Nebula, two-time Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou as Korath, Academy Award® winner Benicio del Toro as The Collector, Academy Award nominee John C. Reilly as Rhomann Dey, and six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close as Nova Prime, with Vin Diesal as Groot and Academy Award nominee Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon. Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” is scheduled for release August 1, 2014!