'Spider-Man' in 'The Avengers?' Sony and Marvel In Talks Over Sharing Character

That Spider-Man and Iron Man team-up you've been dreaming of just might happen.

HitFix has an (admittedly very vague and unconfirmed) report that Sony and Marvel are in talks to come up with a plan to share the character of Spider-Man across each other's movies. While Spider-Man is a Marvel character, Sony has been making the Spider-Man movies for years and holds the license for the character.

If Marvel and Sony do strike a deal, that means that Spider-Man could potentially join the Marvel Cinematic Universe and show up in sequels to "The Avengers" and other films in the current Marvel franchises. That would be consistent with the comics, too: Spidey has been a member of the Avengers before, recently and notably in the New Avengers series leading up to the Marvel Civil War.

It would be an interesting move from Sony, and one without a real precedent. Most movie studios want to protect their big-ticket properties at all costs, but with the immense popularity of Marvel Studios' movies, there's a chance that it might actually benefit Sony to have Spider-Man appear in them, helping draw even bigger audiences to upcoming sequels to "The Amazing Spider-Man."

However, if this deal is struck, Spider-Man would not be in any solo movies under the Marvel Studios banner, and would likely only appear in a large ensemble (a la "Avengers") or in a cameo. Therein lies the problem; it's unlikely that Sony will want to treat their tentpole superhero that way.

In fact, Avi Arad (who produced the recent Spider-Man movies) said as much himself. "I think there are some stories that will fit beautifully into a cross," Arad said. "Spider-Man would be incredible mixed up with those other universes. But if we want to do that, the crossovers, it has to be a story that is absolutely centered on Spider-Man. We cannot be second banana to anything out there. Because this is the king. This is the one that influenced young people from birth."

So, we might be in a catch-22 of sorts. Sony will only share Spider-Man if he's used in a significant way, but he can't be used in a significant way or else Marvel will be infringing on Sony's copyright.

Now, what about those X-Men? Are they busy?