Despite the fact that Sony has laid out the future of its Spider-Man franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 4, Venom and The Sinister Six, and Marvel Studios having reportedly mapped out the Marvel Cinematic Universe until 2028, it’s the question that just won’t go away… will we see Andrew Garfield’s wall-crawler appearing alongside The Avengers?

Marvel Studios may have kept quiet on the issue, but we’ve heard several comments from the likes of Garfield, director Marc Webb and others affiliated with the Spidey franchise raising hopes that we may get to see the big Marvel crossover one day. However, according to producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, it’s not going to happen until the Sony franchise has “run out of ideas”.

“I think I’m probably a little bit of the militant here,” Arad told IGN (via CBM). “I think it will take a moment in which we’ve run out of ideas. There’s so much to tell about Spider-Man. There’s so much to tell about The Sinister Six. The relationship between Spider-Man and Venom will bring a whole other world in.”

Tolmach went into a little more detail, stating that: “Avi always refers to that question as a stunt. If you were to do that, you know, Spider-man in The Avengers is a stunt. And I get why everybody – you know, fans and audience members and movie goers – I understand it. When you think about the Sinister Six and you think about Venom and you think about Carnage and you think about Spider-man in whatever way you want in association with those movies, they feel like they’re built for Spider-Man. Like that’s where his story needs to go and wants to go, and it has to be about more than a stunt. Stunts can be cool but its also a business, and so the other side of the answer is they’re owned by different companies. And there’s a ton left in Sony’s world – there’s a lot of business left because there’s a lot of story left. So for them to want to take this character and put it with Marvel and Disney is a huge undertaking and probably, as Avis’ saying, isn’t necessary until you feel like, ‘Wow, we’re sort of out of ideas. what should we do?’ And we’re far from out of ideas.”

So, I guess we can rule out the possibility of seeing Andrew Garfield lining up alongside the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, but let’s face it – was it ever realistically going to happen anyway?