The Amazing Spider-Man 2 producers talk 'Avengers' crossover

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach have been in the news quite a bit this past week as they discussed the Venom and Sinister Six spinoff movies. Their latest topic is a Spider-Man crossover with The Avengers, but don't get too excited just yet.

The two spoke to IGN and Arad said Spidey would likely only swing into the Marvel/Disney realm once the creative well has run dry.

"I think I'm probably a little bit of the militant here," he said. "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."

Arad compared the situation to the comics. "We did it in the books; we did team-ups all the time. Even with DC. You know, we'd flip a coin, 'Okay, who's going to win, Batman or The Hulk? We'll make a cover out of it.'"

He then reemphasized the point that Spider-Man himself has plenty of material from which to draw.

"But we really feel very confident that we have so much to do [...] Peter Parker is unique; he's really different. He's not an Avenger. He's not an X-Man. He's unique and we revere that. And we'd rather work really hard to have the right ideas than - you know in the toy business we used to make toys glow in the dark when they weren't selling well and it gave at least another Christmas. We don't need it yet."

Tolmach echoed his colleague's feelings but said he understands the desire for such a crossover.

"You know 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 moviegoers - I understand it. When you think about the Sinister Six and you think about Venom and you think about Carnage and you think 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 it's 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 Avi's 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."

Do you think a crossover would ever happen? Let us know in the comments below.