Avengers: Infinity War director shoots down rumors of an X-Men crossover

As far as we know, Avengers: Infinity War will include every major character from the MCU as Earth's Mightiest Heroes face their biggest opponent yet - Thanos. With directors Anthony and Joe Russo recent remarks that the movie marks a significant change in the MCU, a new beginning of sorts, there's a chance that could mean something drastic. I mean, X-Men joining the battle kind of drastic.  

It's not the first time the mutants have been mentioned in regards to a potential crossover, but with Phase Three of the MCU going out with a bang, rumors are swirling again on this very hot topic. But apparently there's no truth to any of it. "As far as we know, right now there isn't talk regarding the X-Men," Infinity War director Joe Russo tells ComicBook.com. "I don't know if behind-the-scenes there were conversations or if there are conversations happening but we certainly haven't heard of any." 

For the X-Men to appear in the MCU it would require a similar deal to the one struck between Marvel Studios and Sony, that allowed for the webslinger to join the party. "Sony and Marvel had a relationship through Kevin [Feige] and Amy [Pascal] and through us and Amy," he explains. "That's really how Spider-Man came about. It requires a certain alchemy and a very special situation for studios to share properties."  

Is it likely? It's hard to say, but no-one expected Spider-Man to join the MCU and that's happened. If it were to occur, there'd have to be a truly special agreement reached between Fox - which owns the screen rights to the X-Men - and Marvel Studios. And while X-Men Apocalypse wasn't the critical hit Fox was hoping for it still made $541 million worldwide, so there's still plenty of life in the franchise just yet. 

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Avengers: Infinity War is due to arrive in UK cinemas on April 27, 2018 before opening in US theatres on May 4th, 2018. 

Images: Marvel, Fox

Gem Seddon

Gem Seddon is GamesRadar+'s west coast Entertainment News Reporter, working to keep all of you updated on all of the latest and greatest movies and shows on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Outside of entertainment journalism, Gem can frequently be found writing about the alternative health and wellness industry, and obsessing over all things Aliens and Terminator on Twitter.