Speaking at a fan Q&A in London following the European Premiere of Avengers Assemble, Marvel producer Kevin Feige was asked whether or not it was fair to assume that the third instalment of the Avengers franchise would likely be based around the popular civil war storyline featured in the comics.  Here was his response…

 “Avengers 3… we need to take one step at a time. Civil War is a great storyline that pits hero against hero because of the superhero registration act. The government is going to force them to reveal their identities. Iron Man thought it was a good idea, but of course Captain America disagrees with him. Thus it’s superhero civil war. I think it’s an amazing story it certainly wouldn’t happen before Avengers 3 but that might be a good film for it. We need to get Joss Whedon in a room and talk about that too.”

Not only does this implicitly seem to confirm that Joss Whedon will be the man responsible for any future Avengers films but it gives some indication that Marvel is already looking well past the current Avengers film.

Here’s what Producer Kevin Feige had to say about the likely Avengers sequels.

“Discussions are beginning; obviously the first film hasn’t come out yet, so let’s just see how it does. But certainly the idea is to follow the model of the comicbooks and have the individual films continuing with a big crossover event like civil war every few years. I’d love to replicate that every three or four years in movie theaters as well.”

Asked whether the new film would include some of Marvels man other superhero characters he went on to say

“This is definitely the foundation but I do think part of the fun of the continuing Avengers series would be to introduce more characters.”

But further Avengers films definitely won’t be featuring characters like Spiderman, X- Men or Fantastic 4. As the producer explained

“The characters that could come back to us have. The contracts are very specific and we’re talking years and decades in terms of those contracts. The good news is the Amazing Spiderman that Sony is working on is an excellent movie and I really liked X-Men First Class that Fox did. So if things continue like that I think we’re in good hands.”

So putting all those pieces together our 8 year weight for Avengers 3 Civil war officially starts today. Luckily we’ll have Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Captain America 2 to keep us bus in the meantime.