If theres one thing the Marvel Cinematic Universe has excelled at and to which it owes much of its success, its the level of preplanning.
This is what allowed Kevin Feige and Co. to bring together largely disparate characters and create one of the most popular teams in movie history. And a recent interview just reminded everyone of one thing: the MCU is a big game of chess, and Marvel is at least 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
At an event at the Hero Complex Gallery in Los Angeles Sept. 29 to celebrate the home video release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, responded to a question about incorporating Spider-Man into the MCU late in the game and revealed that Marvel, in fact, has contingency plans in place for a number of eventualities, including for if rights to some of the characters currently controlled by other studios were to revert back to Marvel.
This has been a dream of ours for a long time, he said to Slashfilm, speaking of the experience of working Spider-Man into next year's "Captain America: Civil War. We always had contingency plans should, you know, which we always do anyways. Are we going to be able to make another movie with this actor? If we are then well do this, if not, were going to do this.
"If we get the rights to a certain character, thatd be great, then wed do this/ If not, wed do this. So we always sort of operate with those alternate timelines available and are ready to shift if something happens."
For a lot of fans, the best-case scenario would be to see all of Marvels characters brought under one roof.
Marvels deal with Sony, which sees the two studios collaborating on a standalone Spider-Man movie slated for 2017 in exchange for which Marvel has the right to use him in the MCU, still feels a little like a compromise.
As for two of Marvels other big teams, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, they remain firmly in the grip of Fox so long as the studio continues making movies with them, anyway, which could be a long, long time.
The X-Men have proven to be one of Foxs most valuable properties. Last years Days of Future Past earned nearly $750 million worldwide, making it the most lucrative X-Men movie to date.
However, this summers gloomy Fantastic Four reboot was not quite so successful. It earned an abysmal 9 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the worst reviewed superhero movies ever. It even trails Batman & Robin by a 2 percent.
Notwithstanding, Fox plans to move forward on a "Fantastic Four" sequel set in the same dark, gritty universe established in the first film, according to Drew McWeeny of Hitfix.
But should Fox ever grow tired of having Marvel characters, it's nice to know the MCU might already have a place for them the same way it did for Spider-Man.
Everybody's favorite wall-crawler makes his debut appearance in the MCU May 6. Fox's "X-Men: Apocalypse" hits theaters May 27.
This is what allowed Kevin Feige and Co. to bring together largely disparate characters and create one of the most popular teams in movie history. And a recent interview just reminded everyone of one thing: the MCU is a big game of chess, and Marvel is at least 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
At an event at the Hero Complex Gallery in Los Angeles Sept. 29 to celebrate the home video release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, responded to a question about incorporating Spider-Man into the MCU late in the game and revealed that Marvel, in fact, has contingency plans in place for a number of eventualities, including for if rights to some of the characters currently controlled by other studios were to revert back to Marvel.
This has been a dream of ours for a long time, he said to Slashfilm, speaking of the experience of working Spider-Man into next year's "Captain America: Civil War. We always had contingency plans should, you know, which we always do anyways. Are we going to be able to make another movie with this actor? If we are then well do this, if not, were going to do this.
"If we get the rights to a certain character, thatd be great, then wed do this/ If not, wed do this. So we always sort of operate with those alternate timelines available and are ready to shift if something happens."
For a lot of fans, the best-case scenario would be to see all of Marvels characters brought under one roof.
Marvels deal with Sony, which sees the two studios collaborating on a standalone Spider-Man movie slated for 2017 in exchange for which Marvel has the right to use him in the MCU, still feels a little like a compromise.
As for two of Marvels other big teams, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, they remain firmly in the grip of Fox so long as the studio continues making movies with them, anyway, which could be a long, long time.
The X-Men have proven to be one of Foxs most valuable properties. Last years Days of Future Past earned nearly $750 million worldwide, making it the most lucrative X-Men movie to date.
However, this summers gloomy Fantastic Four reboot was not quite so successful. It earned an abysmal 9 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the worst reviewed superhero movies ever. It even trails Batman & Robin by a 2 percent.
Notwithstanding, Fox plans to move forward on a "Fantastic Four" sequel set in the same dark, gritty universe established in the first film, according to Drew McWeeny of Hitfix.
But should Fox ever grow tired of having Marvel characters, it's nice to know the MCU might already have a place for them the same way it did for Spider-Man.
Everybody's favorite wall-crawler makes his debut appearance in the MCU May 6. Fox's "X-Men: Apocalypse" hits theaters May 27.
