Stan Lee’s Marvel Characters: He Wants All Comics Heroes In One Movie

Several of Stan Lee’s Marvel characters have seen some screen time over the past decade plus. However, the proverbial godfather of comic book superheroes wants more, and he may need to fight the studios and the odds to get his wish.

Comics legend Stan Lee’s official words, as relayed by Digital Spy, are below.

“I would love to see that. Though there are so many of them now that I don’t know if they’d all fit on the screen! Little by little, they are appearing and guest-starring in each other’s movies. It’s such fun, because any one of them could fit into another movie – there’s always a way to write it. When I was writing the comics, I would always have somebody guest-starring in somebody else’s story. It’s fun to write and I think the readers and the audiences like it too.”

As it stands now, Marvel Studios owns the Avengers and all of the characters related “as long as they aren’t called mutants.” Twentieth Century Fox still has a rather hearty hold on the X-Men franchise and also hasn’t let go of Fantastic Four. Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man on the silver screen, but they have made a deal to let the web-slinger appear in a small handful of MCU films.

The above paragraph is one of many explanations for why a movie featuring all of Stan Lee’s Marvel characters probably won’t be happening anytime soon.

As of 2020, literally a small percentage all of Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics characters in attendance will have even seen the big or small screen. Most casual comic book fans wouldn’t even recognize a majority of what’s available, and some would be such obvious copies of characters that casual film audiences would likely be wondering if they’d run out of ideas.

Wolverine himself has several other characters based on him with only minor differences, such as Sabertooth, Lady Deathstrike, and even the new female Wolverine. Spider-Man has had Venom, Carnage, and several whose costumes look similar, such as Deadpool. Professor Xavier, Jean Grey, the White Witch, and the Scarlet Witch are all psychics to a degree.

Many of Stan Lee’s Marvel characters are similar in ability and appearance, and as a result, we’ve only seen a small fraction of them. In order to introduce them all, it would likely take decades. Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t had time to show us everybody possible in its collection. Joe Russo, half of the director duo behind Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, has only mentioned 67, as previously reported by the Inquisitr, and he admitted he was exaggerating.

The reason the MCU has remained successful and hasn’t fallen to Batman & Robin levels of ridiculousness is that Marvel Studios is taking its time to introduce characters a handful at a time at the most. Guardians of the Galaxy is the largest introduction of a group yet, and it got away with it because they are a team. Otherwise that many new characters at once could be overwhelming, and the movie would probably flop.

Look at the above mentioned Batman & Robin or Sony’s Spider-Man franchises for examples of that happening before. Stan Lee’s Marvel characters need time to develop individually and most likely that isn’t going to happen while he’s still alive.

Get it together, Marvel! Stan Lee wants ALL his creations in one movie https://t.co/camYm9U9MU pic.twitter.com/M8hMJ2mN43

— Digital Spy (@digitalspy) January 22, 2016

The upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse and Avengers: Infinity War will be pushing what’s possible on that level though. Even DC Comics is attempting something similar to “catch up” with the MCU, throwing many of the Justice League into Batman v Superman to build up to the group film. Suicide Squad is doing the same thing with the villains (mostly from the Batman collection), but they’re attempting the film as a “team” movie.

Throwing all of Stan Lee’s Marvel characters into one movie would certainly be ambitious, but there would be very little room for character development. For this reason, each character (and there are hundreds) would need to be introduced individually and given a story adding to the overall plot, likely reaching far after the conclusion of the Infinity War films.

Do you think a film featuring all of Stan Lee’s Marvel characters would work?

[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]