The ultimate dream of uniting all of the Marvel onscreen characters may have progressed one baby step. Sony Pictures has confirmed that they will make spinoff movies which is the reason behind the presence of numerous characters teased in "The Amazing Spider Man 2."

Sony has made an "official announcement" through the website electroarrives.com:

"Sony Pictures Entertainment, in association with Marvel Entertainment, is developing several new projects in the Spider-Man franchise, with Alex Kurtzman,Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard to collaborate on overseeing the developing story over several films that will be produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach."

In the same press release, Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures, shares: "This collaboration was born out of the great experience we and Marc had working with Alex, Bob, and Jeff on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. With more than fifty years' wealth of stories in the comic books to draw upon for inspiration, the Spider-Man universe is truly boundless; in addition, the Spider-Man comics have the greatest rogues gallery of any series, and to have the chance to explore that on film is truly thrilling.

Until now, we have approached each film as a separate, self-contained entity, but with this move, we have the opportunity to grow the franchise by looking to the future as we develop a continuous arc for the story. That is what Alex, Bob, Jeff, Ed, and Drew will do in this unprecedented collaboration, and we're excited about the directions they are taking the character and the world."

Notable name there is Drew Goddard, who recently signed on to write and direct the Marvel Television series, "Daredevil" which will air on Netflix as part of their multi-show agreement. Goddard is close with Joss Whedon, the Avengers guy, as they worked together for "The Cabin In The Woods." Kurtzman and Orci have been involved in CW series "Tales From the Darkside" and co-wrote the "Star Trek" installments for Paramount.

The big news is that Sony/Columbia is collaborating with Marvel/Disney in a project. The projected expansion of the Spider Man universe is expected to spill on some Marvel properties, given that Spider Man and Daredevil both operate in New York City. There are no restrictions in the comics, and they have collaborated several times. Their respective rogues' galleries share a lot of common names.

New York City is also the setting for "The Avengers" movie and home to Stark Enterprises. While it would be a stretch to imagine their universe's crossing over, it is still one step.  

Perhaps this is their response to 20^th Century Fox's aggressive crossover plans between the X-Men universe and Fantastic Four, which they will reboot in 2015.

For now, "The Amazing Spider Man 2" is the next destination, and it opens May 2, 2014 in the USA.