Avengers Amazing Spider-Man reference revealed

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The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man films have a lot in common. Both are CGI spectaculars. Both are being released in 3D. Both originated from excellent Silver Age Marvel comic-books. And both are hoping to make high-entries on critics' annual Best Of 2012 lists.

But if Sony and Marvel had their way, the two franchises would be even more closely connected.

Because The Avengers very nearly contained a direct reference to Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man , in the form of the Oscorp building designed specifically for the movie.

According to production sources, Marvel and Sony worked together to include the latest version of the Oscorp building into The Avengers' Manhattan city-scape. Sony approached Marvel with the initial design, Marvel agreed, but the timings didn't work out, and by the time it was ready to be added, Avengers ' digital Manhattan was already locked.

Which is sad news, but it does mean that Marvel and Sony were prepared to collaborate, even before box office audiences started tipping wheelbarrows full of cash into the laps of the money men at Marvel.

And that makes us very excited indeed. Because The Avengers and Spider-Man are connected in another, more significant way. Spidey has been a member of The Avengers, albeit temporarily.

We would allow ourselves to be bitten by several radioactive spiders if Avengers Vs Spider-Man was to get made.

Even if the consequences in the real world of being bitten by several radioactive spiders would probably be a slow painful death, it would be worth it to see The Avengers assuming that Spider-Man is a villain, before uniting to defeat a common enemy, on a massive screen.