Most film fans know that before Marvel Studios began producing their own movies, they sold the rights to several major characters to other studios. For example, 20th Century Fox got the rights to the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Daredevil while Sony got Ghost Rider and the crown jewel, Spider-Man. At the time, it made perfect sense and begat several great movies. Now that Marvel movies are the biggest thing ever, though, the studio regrets letting those characters go because it completely kills an opportunity for more cross overs. Rival corporations would never help out one another, would they?

In the comics, Spider-Man has at times been a major member of The Avengers and though there was talk of Andrew Garfield, the star of the new Amazing Spider-Man, appearing in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, it was nothing more than a rumor. However, it turns out the studios did agree on one crossover between the films, the timing just didn’t work out. After the jump, read about how the world of the new Amazing Spider-Man almost crossed over with The Avengers.

The fine folks at Latino Review spoke with Amazing Spider-Man producers Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach who revealed that the Oscorp Building in The Amazing Spider-Man was going to be placed in the Manhattan skyline of The Avengers.

Recently deceased production designer J Michael Riva designed the Oscorp building as well as the buildings in the first two Iron Man films. So, because the buildings shared a similar look, Disney and Sony discussed the possibility of the cross over and, reportedly, agreed on it.

Unfortunately, The Avengers came out two months before The Amazing Spider-Man, so by the time the Oscorp building was ready to go, The Avengers skyline shots were already completed. The window was gone.

Still, the impossible cross studio promotion almost happened. The lines of communication opened. Our fanboy fantasies of Spider-Man in The Avengers 2 might be a little far fetched but if this is possible, who is to say?

My question becomes this: if this had worked out, wouldn’t it have been distracting? Wouldn’t we all have thought, “If Oscorp exists, why isn’t Spider-Man helping out here?” And if Spidey’s origin was post Avengers, wouldn’t Spider-Man’s New York looked awkward without a destroyed Stark building? Maybe it’s for the best this didn’t happen. Do you agree?