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I've read that Hugh Jackman almost had a cameo in the Spider-Man 2 movie, but there were some issues with the costume, and he couldn't appear in the movie.

But if they had succeeded in having him in the movie, would that have meant that both the franchises existed in the same universe?

Or was it just that they didn't care much about the sharing universe part, and were focused on making Spidey and Logan appear together?

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As far as I remember, it wasn't a costume issue that prevented Wolverine from showing up in the Spider-Man films, it was a rights issue.

The live-action rights to characters like Wolverine and other mutants belongs to 20th Century Fox, whereas the live-action rights for Spider-Man belong to Sony Pictures. For Wolverine to appear in the Spider-Man films, a complex agreement between the two studios would have had to have been made - clearly, one or both studios didn't think that a minor cameo would be worth the time and hassle spent negotiating complex legal agreements. As I type, Wolverine has never shown up in a Spider-Man film.

As such, we can't know about what the intent behind the cameo would have been. From memory, however, Hugh Jackman (the actor who played Wolverine in the X-Men films at the time) only ever spoke about the cross-over as an Easter Egg/cameo and nothing more, meaning that a more meaningful cross-over (such as Wolverine helping Spider-Man fight the main bad guy, or Spider-Man showing up and helping the X-Men in one of their films) would be unlikely at best. This indicates to me that no serious consideration was ever given to having the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films and the Bryan Singer X-Men films be set in the same universe.

If you want to know more about why the rights to various Marvel characters are split between other studios and the nature of those contract, see my answer here.

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    cinemablend.com/new/… "In the first "Spider-Man" -- Kevin Feige reminded me of this -- we really tried to get me to come on and do something, whether it was a gag or just to walk through the shot or something. The problem was, we couldn't find the suit. The suit was stuck in some thing. And so when they were in New York when I was there, we couldn't get it together." It really was a wardrobe issue that prevented it. Apr 7, 2017 at 12:06
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    Of course, one could argue the wardrobe issue was a deliberate ploy because of the whole rights thing, Fox, Sony and Disney don't exactly play nicely when it comes to legal stuff. Apr 7, 2017 at 12:08
  • @DisturbedNeo Yeah, I don't exactly buy it. Even if they had have filmed it, I'm willing to bet a lengthy legal battle would have been undertaken before the scene could make it to cinemas. Apr 7, 2017 at 12:20
  • The rights issue is well-known generally but when it comes to this specific issue, it is just unsupported speculation. There are no sources saying that the rights was the reason Wolverine didn't appear in Spider-man 2. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman is saying the suit was the problem. Unless someone can provide a convincing reason why Jackman might lie, we should be inclined to take him at his word over speculation.
    – J Doe
    Apr 7, 2017 at 18:06
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    I can imagine the not being able to get hold of the costume could have prevented a scene from being filmed — scenes can be filmed before legal rights to characters are sorted out. Apr 7, 2017 at 22:24
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It was just supposed to be a gag.

The cameo would have been in the first Spider-Man movie, not Spider-Man 2, so keep in mind that it was in the very early days of the current era of Marvel movies. The first X-Men movie had just come out, and that was it.

Jackman refers to the idea as just a gag, but given how fans can be, and how much Marvel seems to listen to their fans, it may have established a shared or at least cotigunious universe. Marvel was probably at least a little bit interested in establishing that precedent too.

The quote you are thinking of is this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/hugh-jackman-prisoners_n_3896582.html

Huffington Post: I read where you were saying how much you’d like to act opposite Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, but of course the studio rights prevent that. Is there anything stopping you from just walking by in a scene where the character’s name isn’t mentioned?

Hugh Jackman: In the first “Spider-Man” — Kevin Feige reminded me of this — we really tried to get me to come on and do something, whether it was a gag or just to walk through the shot or something. The problem was, we couldn’t find the suit. The suit was stuck in some thing. And so when they were in New York when I was there, we couldn’t get it together. So, you know, I actually asked some high level people about it. Because the optimist in me goes, “Why not? Why can’t we do it? You know, a split cast or whatever?” And someone reminded that the amount of money Fox paid compared to the amount of money Disney paid is very different [laughs]. So how you split that pie up? God knows. But in the comic books, what’s great about it is they’re just mashing together all the time — and it’s awesome. And people are like, “Yeah, well, let’s get this one with that!” And, you know, I still think, one day, there may be an ability to do it.

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