Marvel boss Kevin Feige talks Marvel movies-TV connections, says a crossover is 'inevitable'

When Marvel first ventured into the television world with "Agents of SHIELD" after the success of "The Avengers," everybody pondered: how much connected the TV series would be to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Looking at the third season of SHIELD, it seems the answer is "very little." Even though "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" blew up most of the premise of "Agents of SHIELD" in the second half of its first season, there was no reference of the series in any of the subsequent movies at all.

However, it seems this situation is about to change with the immense success of Netflix series "Daredevil" besides four more in the row, "Jessica Jones," "Luke Cage," "Iron Fist," and "The Defenders."

While "Agents of SHIELD" and "Agent Carter" are the network TV shows, Netflix series like "Daredevil" proved that Marvel can use the long-form stories to elaborate upon the characters perfectly instead of spending millions of dollars to make a feature film on them.

With these TV and web shows, Marvel has a wider area to explore avenues that aren't available to them in MCU. Unlike the movies, there are not many restrictions in the TV shows as there is plenty of time to build upon the characters without worrying about time and financial constraints.

For long, fans have been speculating whether a crossover will ever happen between MCU and the TV and web series. Speaking at a recent Q&A in anticipation of the Blu-ray release of "Avengers: Age of Ultron," Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed that it's only a matter of time before the crossover happens, but there are certain hurdles that must be cleared first.

"I think that's inevitable at some point, as we are plotting the movies going forward and they are doing the shows," Feige said.

"The schedules don't always quite match up to make that possible. It's easier for them, they are more nimble and faster and produce things quicker than we do, which is one of the main reasons you see the repercussions of 'Winter Soldier' or 'Age of Ultron' in the show.

"But going forward, and certainly as they do more shows and cast them with such great actors as they have, particularly in 'Daredevil,' that may occur. But the reality of it is by the time we start doing a movie, they would be midway through a season then by the time the movie comes out they would be done with the second and starting the third season, so finding timing on that is not always easy."

As the casting of "Daredevil" has been perfect with talents like Krysten Ritter, David Tennant and Carrie-Anne Moss involved with "Jessica Jones," it is evident that MCU has its eyes on these series, especially on those actors who exist in the same universe of the movies.

However, as Feige mentioned, scheduling is an issue, hence a crossover may not happen anytime soon. Besides, Feige has less connection to the TV shows as instead of reporting to Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, he reports to Disney's Alan Horn now. As Perlmutter is in-charge of the TV and web series, it may take some time for Feige to get a deal with Marvel Entertainment for the crossover.