Two rival studios teaming up to produce a movie featuring the CBM characters they hold the respective rights to is something fans have dreamed of seeing for many years..and unfortunately, they'll have to keep dreaming. Earlier today it was revealed that in some Countries, the post-credits stinger in
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a scene from Bryan Singer's new
X-Men flick, which featured Mystique, Toad and Havoc taking on Stryker and his men. The Webhead wasn't present of course, nor did the scene have a thing to do with the movie that preceded it, but some fans still thought this meant that a crossover was in the pipeline. Well, sorry to report that was not the case. Variety did some digging and here's what they discovered.
The reason, Variety has learned, is that “Spider-Man” director Marc Webb had an existing contract with Fox Searchlight to helm another film following 2009′s “500 (Days) of Summer.” After “The Amazing Spider-Man” in 2012, Webb’s negotiations briefly stalled with Sony as he was caught in a tug-of-war with Fox. Eventually, Fox agreed to allow Webb to direct Sony’s “Spider-Man” sequel, but only if Sony would promote its “X-Men” film for free.
So there you have it: not only are we not getting a crossover, but Sony were actually kinda held to ransom over the whole thing! Make no mistake about it guys; short of one company buying the rights to the other's Marvel characters, or agreeing to an equal share of the takings (which is a very tricky issue when merchandise sales etc factor in), something like this just isn't likely to happen anytime soon.