I think the cast is so big that if they all didn't have their own films then we'd never really get to know them properly or get to see them develop, but thinking of the money angle I can see Marvel continuing to let characters have their own films and then just bring bunches of them together every so often in Avengers/group films.

Personally I'm happy with the roster as it is, but I know they'll be people who'd like to see others come and go. And I would like to see more of the secondary cast, and maybe a random Spider Man cameo?

an avengers 3, the roster will probably look pretty different as Marvel is trying to develop Doc Strange, Luke Cage, Black Panther, Vision and talks of how to make the X-Men and Spiderman universes mesh with the MCU

So would they just rotate characters as the storylines demanded? That sounds very comic-book-ish in its approach, but being a film fan first, it would leave me disappointed, as I'm pretty invested in particular characters.

Ah well, it's their studio.

Well, not sure, but eventually RDJ is going o become too expensive for the studio and it's doubtful he wants to keep playing Iron Man forever. By the time A2 rolls around he'll have suited up 5 times, and made at least one cameo. His deal was only for 6 movies. Same thing for the other actors, Hemsworth, how long will he want to play Thor? Natalie Portman was rumored not to want to come back for the sequel, and it took some serious talks, that's why no cameo in Avengers. Evans has a few more movies on his deal, but allegedly cameos count towards these contracts, that's why Sam Jackson has a nine picture deal without ever really staring in anything besides Avengers.Neither Renner or Scarlett signed deals anywhere near as long as the others. So re-upping everyone beyond A2 will be a massive dump truck of money and some serious commitment from the actors.
So it may very well be easier and cheaper to go with new characters after A2, a whole new lineup.

There's been a lot of clamoring for everyone's favorite comic book character; it's interesting for me to be on the other side of this because I used to love Marvel comics but never developed much affection for The Avengers (I was an X-Men girl). So I have no favorite Avenger to clamor for; I've come at it as someone who just adored the Iron Man and Avengers movies.

I was X Men first too :D I watched the first Iron Man film on a whim and that was that, heh. I love combinations though, all the superhero families, so...I guess I don't have favourites so much as people I like or would like to see together because of how they would or wouldn't get along.

is the fact X-Men is owned by Fox and therefore the possibility of a Wolverine or Beast as an Avenger as in the comics will likely never happen. Also Spiderman, that probably won't happen either.
Also X2 and X3 didn't do it for me as movies, destroyed good momentum created with the first. First Class was good, but actually would have liked to see the actual First Class of X-Men (Jean, Scott, Bobby, Hank, Warren) rather than what they did. The Wolverine origins movie was god awful, and they ruined Deadpool, and crammed the Blob and Gambit, and others in completely unnecessarily.

dude, X3 was like a masterclass in what not to do in a giant superhero movie. geez.

i couldn't even sit through Wolverine.

Agreed. I choose to believe X3 is just a collective nightmare that never actually happened.

I really do hope Marvel gains the rights back to X-Men and even Spiderman because I too would *love* to see them in an Avengers movie! I don't know that much about the comics, but I did know that some of them were actual Avengers, and that would be epic!

I'm with you on First Class. It was very good, but was I was surprised when they didn't go with the actual first X-Men... but still a good movie.

Let us not speak of the atrocity that was "Deadpool" in the Origins movie....

I refused to see the Wolverine origin movie because I hate the idea of Wolverine having his origin pinned down! He's best with that little bit of unknown always clinging to him, IMHO.

could be told without doing an actually origin, you start it with him as just a full grown man drifting aimlessly across Canada and joining the army looking for adventure. I had this vision of a pre-X-Men trilogy that would have been so good in my opinion. It would need image rights all under one umbrella, but the first part gets told as WW1/WW2 era story with Cap, Bucky and young Black Widow cameos, followed by a post war sequel taking place in the Far East after the bomb has been dropped looking for peace and serenity done in a Hong Kong Kung Fu/Japanese Ninja flavour with Mariko, Ogun and the Hand, followed by the finale where he realizes he can't live a life of peace and goes back West, done as a John Le Carre-esque gritty spy story of Team X/Cold War era with Sabretooth, Maverick and Kestrel that ends with him volunteering Jason Bourne style for the Weapon X project. All done with no claws or costumes. Three different movies, three different eras, three different styles visually.

I would so pay for that! I like Wolverine's Far East story/connections and would like to see them worked in, and that version would so very much fit the bill.

Well the new James Mangold film, The Wolverine due this year is filmed entirely based on stories from the Chris Claremont Japan era stories. Mariko, Yukio, Silver Samurai, Viper. So hopefully it is at least better than the first effort at a Wolverine movie that basically spat in comic book fans faces.