This means the MCU characters are new in the same wheelhouse as the X-Men, Deadpool and Fantastic Four.

The Simpsons are also included in the takeover, eerily echoing a moment in an episode from 1998 in which 20th Century Fox was jokily called “a division of Walt Disney Ltd”.

A statement on the Walt Disney Company website declared: “The agreement also provides Disney with the opportunity to reunite the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool with the Marvel family under one roof and create richer, more complex worlds of inter-related characters and stories that audiences have shown they love. 

“The addition of Avatar to its family of films also promises expanded opportunities for consumers to watch and experience storytelling within these extraordinary fantasy worlds.”

With the current MCU era set to come to an end with Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers 4, is the door now wide open for a new chapter with even more characters?

Speculation that Hugh Jackman could return as Wolverine has even picked up, after he previously said the chance to unite with the Avengers would be too good to turn down.

However, he has now told Collider: “It's interesting because for the whole 17 years I kept thinking that would be so great, like I would love to see, particularly, Iron Man and the Hulk and Wolverine together. 

“And every time I saw an Avengers movie I could just see Wolverine in the middle of all of them like punching them all on the head. 

“But it was like, ‘Oh well, that's not gonna happen,’ and it was interesting just when I first saw that headline, it was just the possibility of it and who knows what's gonna happen, obviously, I was like, ‘Hang on!’

“But I think, unfortunately, the ship has sailed for me, but for someone else I would like to see Wolverine in there.”

Avengers Infinity War is out on April 27, 2018 in the UK.