There’s an X-Men: Days of Future Past Scene During Amazing Spider-Man 2’s End Credits

No, Spider-Man is not teaming up with the X-Men on the big screen. But the X-Men are showing up for some reason during the credits of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Sony’s latest Spidey film opens in international markets including the UK today, and reports started coming in this morning of a mid-credits scene which is from Fox’s upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past. The scene in question (involving Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique, Lucas Till’s Havok, Evan Jonigkeit's Toad, and Josh Helman’s Stryker) is reportedly not part of Amazing Spider-Man 2 in any sense and is essentially an ad for X-Men. That is to say, the X-Men scene is just something from Days of Future Past that has been plopped into the credits of Spider-Man 2, and is not the kind of hint or set-up for a future adventure that has become standard in Marvel Studios’ movies.

And yet, this does mark an apparent alliance between Fox and Sony to at least work together on some level, even if it is just a promotional arrangement. Could this mean that Andrew Garfield’s wallcrawler will one day actually cross over on screen with Hugh Jackman’s crew, those mutants who are sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them? Hey, it’s a first step at the very least!

Whether or not this clip is included in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 when it is released in the U.S. on May 2 remains to be seen. In the meantime, we’ve reached out to Sony for comment.

Update: Slash Film reports that Sony has confirmed this scene will also be included in the U.S. release of TASM2.

Update # 2: And now we have the reasoning behind all this, and it's all very contract-based and mundane. According to Variety, the insertion of this scene in Spider-Man 2 happened because the film's director Marc Webb "had an existing contract with Fox Searchlight to helm another film following 2009′s 500 (Days) of Summer. After The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012, Webb’s negotiations briefly stalled with Sony as he was caught in a tug-of-war with Fox. Eventually, Fox agreed to allow Webb to direct Sony’s Spider-Man sequel, but only if Sony would promote its X-Men film for free." Hence the mid-credits stinger.

The trade paper says that Sony could be benefiting from this move as it "allows the studio to situate its movie in the same Marvel family as Captain America and Iron Man, even if the creative team behind those films - including star producer Kevin Feige - are separate. Many fans look forward to the much-hyped codas at the end of a Marvel film." But when the credits Easter Egg amounts to nothing but an ad, and possibly a misleading one for less-informed fans who may now be expecting a Spidey/X-Men team-up, is there really any benefit at all?

Via IGN reader Mark Currie and Empire

Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottIGN, on IGN at scottcollura and on Facebook.