Spider-Who What Now?

If you’re a genre fan around my age, you have fond memories of Jenny Agutter, whether you know you do or not. Granted, she hasn’t been in a lot that’s been on any American’s radar for quite a while, but she played Jessica in Logan’s Run and Alex in An American Werewolf in London, which means for a Generation X male geek, there’s a better than even chance she was the cause for the first time you said, “Mommy? My pee-pee’s broken. It’s pointing at the ceiling.”

Agutter’s making an appearance in the upcoming Avengers flick – after all, Joss Whedon is a male, Gen-X genre fan – which makes her newsworthy, particularly in England, where she’s apparently been working steadily since the 80s. Newsworthy enough to have done an interview for the Radio Times (Think England’s TV Guide) about the experience. An interview where she said that she was sworn to secrecy about anything that happens in the movie… and where she promptly dropped a massive spoiler that, if not a mistake on her part or the part of the reporter who wrote the story, is fairly fucking awesome:

As for Agutter, she’s about to metamorphose again to appear alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson in upcoming Hollywood blockbuster The Avengers.

“I’m sworn to secrecy! I wasn’t allowed a script until I got there, and when I did I felt like a complete child being on big sets and a huge parking lot full of Winnebagos.”

She does let slip that two of these housed SPIDER-MAN [emphasis ours] and Iron Man; we suspect Agutter won’t able to avoid sci-fi conventions for much longer.

Okay, let’s all calm down and think seriously for a minute here: Sony Entertainment holds all the movie rights to Spider-Man. That’s why that Easter Egg on the X-Men DVD where Spider-Man wanders onto the set is just that: a hidden bonus, not meant for general consumption. Marvel Comics might own Spider-Man, but for all intents and purposes, Marvel Studios has no more right to put him in a movie than they do Batman.

For this to be real, Marvel Studios would have to have made a deal with Sony to use the character, who’s going to be in his own movie in July, which seems about as likely as getting the go-ahead to set the flick in The Matrix.

It is far more likely that Agutter can’t tell the difference between Ant Man and Spider-Man, or that the reporter looked at his notebook after the interview and misread “Salami – man good craft services trailer,” than it is for Spider-Man to appear in the Avengers movie.

But if this is legit? Mommy? My pee-pee’s pointing at the ceiling again.

(via Bleeding Cool)