X-Men Producer Talks Avengers Crossover

The X-Men and Avengers franchises are two of the most profitable and successful productions in the superhero world right now. With X-Men: First Class breathing new life into the series, The Avengers boasting a veritable army of audience-friendly comic book heroes, and Chris Nolan’s critically-acclaimed Batman trilogy drawing to a close, they’re pretty much where it’s at.

While the idea of an X-Men/Avengers crossover might just seem like the feverish daydreams of every geek ever, X-Men producer Lauren Shuler-Donner doesn’t seem averse to it.

“I would love it. I would love it. I personally have close ties to Marvel because of Kevin Feige, because Kevin worked for me. But to take our characters and mingle them in the way that they were written, yeah, absolutely.”

And why not?  In the comic books, Marvel superheroes all live in the same universe, interacting with one another as people who share the same line of work are apt to do.  The only reason this isn’t seen as much in film is because character rights are frequently owned by different movie studios. But now that The Avengers has been released and gone on to make unprecedented amounts of money, an ensemble piece might be looking more and more appealing to producers.

Shuler-Donner isn’t the only one who might be interested in these characters meeting, either. The Avengers director Joss Whedon has written 25 issues of the Astonishing X-Men, so we think it’s fair to say that he’d be on board. And Twentieth Century Fox has recently hired a new Marvel consultant, Mark Millar, who has written for Marvel Civil War, Ultimate X-Men, and The Ultimates (The Avengers). One could argue that with so much experience on either side of the table, now would be the perfect time to start talking about a crossover.

On the other hand, any given superhero film is usually filled to the brim as it is. We’ve seen treatments of comic book adaptations that can barely devote enough time to developing its namesake superhero, let alone finding room for cameos that would only serve to reward the more fervent fans.  Characters need room to breath, and when it comes to superheros on screen, more isn’t always more.

So while the idea of a crossover is one that would definitely need to be handled carefully, the fact that that these filmmakers have so much creativity, passion, and a willingness to try new things is always a good sign for the future of superhero movies.

Source: Screen Rant