Do you consider Spiderman, FF, and XMen films part of the Shared Marvel Film Continuity?

Due to contracts signed before Marvel became its own studio, Spiderman, the X-Men, and the FF are all produced by big studios (Fox and Sony if I recall).

That said, they still seem to fit into the shared universe with the Iron Man, Hulk, and likely the upcoming Avenger films. Do you agree with this? If someday Marvel was able to get the rights back, and wanted to do some crossover film (unlikely due to economics), would those characters fit in?

I would say that of the properties, FF seems the most distant from the Avenger universe. The XMen seem the closest (though as with all things XMen, they probably exist better on their own due to the storyline…I mean why hate mutants anymore than altered humans? If I were a mutant, I would just say I was bitten by a radioactive wolverine…)

Spiderman is somewhere in the middle.

None of them fit together with the connected Marvel movies so I doubt they’d be dragged into a crossover even if Marvel were ever to get the rights back.

The public loves Spidey but hates the X-Men, as you said, that makes absolutely zero sense.

Well, Spidey tracks down muggers & bank robbers & the like in his spare time, while the X-men only fight evil mutants. And never underestimate the utility of a snappy one-liner.

The continuity of the Marvel universe is so fucked that it hardly matters.

One element that could tie the films together, the Daily Bugle, is presented solely in the Spider-Man films, even though reporters who work for it in the comics (Ben Urich, Christine Everhart) appear in other films (Daredevil and Iron Man) working for other publications. I recall seeing some headlines in the Fantastic Four movies that were from the New York Post (or something similar).
Anyway, the only element tying the movies together is the occasional appearance of an old guy with a mustache that changes jobs a lot.

Putting them all together in film with the idea that Spider-Man, DareDevil, the FF and the Avengers all share time in NYC would just illustrate the absurdity of that concept.

That’s an artifact left over from the comic books and not a product of the movies. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but, there you go.

And to make it even more confusing, Chris Evans, who has played the Human Torch up til now, is going to play Captain America next.

This. They’re all barely part of the shared Marvel print universe, let alone the shared Marvel movie universe. The only times it seemed like they all actually operated in the same state, let alone city, were when the Fate Of The World was in peril (Onslaught, for example).

Right. The movies didn’t create it, but they buy into it.

In the Spider-Man films, Spidey is beloved. So beloved that random people start pelting the Green Goblin with garbage in the first one to help him and the city throughs a parade in his honor at the start of part 3.

On the other hand, mutants are feared and hated in the X-Men movies. So much so that Rogue and Pyro’s parents have kicked them out before the movie even begins and Iceman’s parents react in horror when they find out he’s a mutant.

It’s because Spidey isn’t a mutant, duh!

Why? It’s a big town. Plenty of freak-space.

That’s the reason given in the comics, sure, but its also stupid as all hell. And trying to translate that into a movie just wouldn’t work.

They used to cross over all the time back in the Silver Age and Bronze Age of comics.

Spider-Man in particular was forever bumping into other costumed heroes while making his rounds.

Well … movie Spidey kind of deserves to be beloved, doesn’t he? He does his heroism in public, and clearly doesn’t much profit from it for the most part. The public would have to be psychopathic NOT to generally like him, JJJ or no. The unpopularity of the X-Men is not his fault.

I don’t get why movie FF got applauded at the end of the first one, though. I haven’t seen the second.

Wait, they actually try to use that explanation in the comics? I was just joking!

I don’t consider Rise of the Silver Surfer to be part of any continuity at all, thanks to the idiots who seemed to think that putting a big damn hole in the bottom of a river would cause said river to dry up like a bathtub being emptied.

Hey, the Transformers were introduced in a Spiderman comic, weren’t they? Next stop: Transformers, FF, Xmen, Spidey movie.

If there were a way to limit its audience to only ten year-old males, it would get rave-reviews.

Does Joe Public in the Marvel Universe even know this? In a world full of mutants, wouldn’t they just assume that he’s a mutant?

Yes. That was the point of my joke. Apparently my joke represents the truth, though.