Well, here's a dilemma... or an opportunity, depending on which way you look at it. This month, Joss Whedon confirmed that two of the mutant characters he'd be adding to the cast in the second Avengers film would be The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, the children of Magneto (the former with chance-altering powers, the other gifted with super-speed). NOW comes the news that Bryan Silver has cast Amercian Horror Story star Evan Peters in X-Men: Days of Future Past... as Quicksilver.
This brings to light the curious, complex and contradictory situation regarding who has the license to what Marvel characters. Marvel sold character-rights to various film-studios in the past, but now having their own studios they are bringing their owncharacters to the screen. Films such as The Avengers, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man etc reside with the relatively new Marvel Studios... the X-Men remain with veteran studio Fox. However while Marvel would nominally keep all characters for which there hasn't been an outsourced franchise deal, many characters within Marvel's fictional universe have appeared in more than one title. While Quicksilver has served alongside the Avengers, his heritage has also made him part of the X-Men universe... so there's equal arguments for studios to claim ownership.
One suspects that in such occasions, rather than have simultanous but contradictory casting, either a character would be actively avoided or that a deal could be worked out to share that would mutually advantageous to both studios. In the case of Quicksilver, it may well depend on how prominently the character features in either film. Equally, the Avengers is a contemporary story, while Days of Future Past is mainly set in the 1970s and an alternative present - which may help or hinder any creative stitching of the character between the films.
Days of Future Past will open next year, while Avengers 2 is scheduled for 2015. It may be a while before we know for sure how things have been worked out... or if this is the start of a fresh rivalry.
