Marvel Comics fans have been dreaming of Spider-Man meeting up with The Avengers on our movie screens ever since the whole crossover thing started happening back in 2008, but up until now it’s never seemed possible with Sony holding the film rights to the web-slinger. Frustrating as it is, since he’s currently an active member on no less than two Avengers comic book teams.

However fresh hope at this dream team-up (dream-up?) has been raised at a US junket for The Amazing Spider-Man, where producer Avi Arad told Latino Review that the two franchises nearly crossed paths this summer.

According to Arad, the Oscorp tower (below) was “this close” from appearing in the Manhattan skyline of The Avengers, with serious talks happening between Sony and Marvel Studios to make it happen. In fact, the only reason it didn’t come to pass was due to time constraints, with Marvel’s digital version of Manhattan already rendered.

The important thing to take from this is that the studios talked about it at least, so perhaps a path is clearing for future cross-studio collaborations – in a similar vein to the way classical Hollywood studios used to lend each other contracted movie stars.

Crave also teased some vague future crossover hope from Arad, who said:

“Everything is possible. If something like that happens, it’s great for Disney, it’s great for Sony. If the right story comes in, we are now working on Venom first. It’s our first out. So our thinking is in the right direction. Avengers to me was an expected success so I never looked at it because Avengers was successful.”

Putting both quotes together it’s clear that Sony are the ones trying to push this idea (however much they deny it) based on the enormous success of their rival’s tentpole earlier this year. But will Marvel be receptive to their advances? After all, they have comparatively little to gain from the association – at least until we see what numbers Spider-Man does. Perhaps Spider-Man being a similarly huge mega-hit will have executives at both studios salivating at the potential for crossover?

So how about it: do you want Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man to line-up in Avengers 2? Let us know.

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