Forgotten X-Men Blooper Featuring Spider-Man Predicted Multiverse 20 Years Ago
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is just starting to unveil its multiverse, bringing back heroes from separate franchises and throwing fan-cast stars into the fray.
While the comics were always pretty entrenched in the multiverse, the past few years are the first we've seen of the phenomenon cinematically – unless you include blooper reels.
Given the current state of affairs among MCU rumor mongers – with everyone from Hugh Jackman to Tobey Maguire to Howard the Duck rumored for 2026's Avengers: Secret Wars – this is the perfect time to revisit the original mixing of the multiverse.
The 2000 film X-Men, which helped usher Marvel into a new era on the big screen, featured a clip of our favorite web-slinging hero on its gag reel.
In the scene where the mutant heroes storm the Statue of Liberty, Cyclops, Storm and Jean Grey were striking a heroic pose when they were interrupted from behind.
"I am completely in the wrong movie," said Spider-Man– amidst howling laughter from the cast and crew. James Marsden (Cyclops) ran off-stage to chase him down.
It was Scott Leva, one of the film's stunt coordinators, who was wearing the red-and-blue spandex. Interestingly, Leva was once approached by Cannon Films to play Spider-Man in an ultimately unmade late '80s movie.
He could have been a perfect cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home – but alas.
During the early 2000s stretch that featured the X-Men finally in live-action, a Spider-Man trilogy was under production. The two would soon become among the highest-grossing franchises in the era.
They almost had another connection two years later. While the 2002 Spider-Man was filming in New York, X-Men actor Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) happened to be nearby.
The studio tried to figure out a small cameo, but it never worked out – reportedly because they couldn't get the suit in time.
Two decades later, X-Men's Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier) had a minor role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, playing an alternate version of himself.
Stewart's crowd-pleasing cameo came just months after No Way Home, which featured two thought-to-be-retired Spider-Man actors alongside the MCU's Tom Holland.
Jackman, whose character was killed in 2017's Logan, is confirmed to appear in the upcoming Deadpool 3, the first mutant-centric film announced to be in the MCU.
MCU Jeff Loveness has said that there aren't any plans for X-Men to appear in either of the upcoming Avengers movies, so for now, the X-Men blooper reel is the closest thing fans have to an X-Men/Spider-Man universe.