Avengers: Age of Ultron - Everything We Know

NewsDen Of Geek1/22/2014 at 8:49AM

New villains, new heroes, and more Joss Whedon, here's what we know about the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie right now.

In the wake of Batman vs. Superman’s release delay, Avengers: Age of Ultron is now quite firmly the most anticipated superhero movie of 2015 (with apologies to Edgar Wright's Ant-Man movie and 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot). The sequel to the most successful superhero movie of all-time (and one of the highest grossing films ever) will arrive on May 1st, 2015, and will see the return of most of the original cast, director/writer Joss Whedon, and include a host of new characters. So what do we know for certain?

THE VILLAINS

As the title suggests, the primary villain of Avengers: Age of Ultron is...Ultron! Who is Ultron? He’s a malevolent artificial intelligence (created with the best of intentions) that wants to see biological life eliminated. For anyone who has never read an Ultron story, we can refer you to some of our favorites. Basically, imagine something far worse than Skynet, able to produce a limitless number of drones for the Avengers to clobber. And who is going to play Ultron? None other than Red Reddington himself, James Spader, who will not only provide the voice of Ultron, but actually portray the malevolent robot via motion capture. Ultron's origins will be altered slightly for the film, as he won't be created by Hank Pym (who will be played by Michael Douglas in Ant-Man but presumably won't be showing up in Avengers: Age of Ultron). The teaser, which you can watch below, implies that it will be Tony Stark who accidentally creates the technological terror.

But there will be at least one other bad guy joining the proceedings, in the form of Thomas Kretschmann as Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. Baron Strucker is the head of HYDRA, generally known as Captain America and SHIELD antagonists, and since it’s unlikely that HYDRA will be central to the plot of a movie called Age of Ultron, he’ll probably be a quickly dispatched secondary threat.

THE HEROES

In addition to the return of the original team, the Avengers are getting some reinforcements in the form of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Elizabeth Olsen is Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson will play Quicksilver. Presumably, their mutant roots will be downplayed considerably, since the issue of their parentage (namely, Magneto) is tied up at another studio. We don't yet know exactly how large their roles will be, or even if they'll be full-blown Avengers allies, but these are two characters with deep roots in Avengers lore, so it's safe to say they'll be quite visible.

THE REST

Avengers: Age of Ultron will begin filming soon enough. There’s nothing to indicate that the film will share anything with the comic of the same name (which dealt with time travel, alternate realities, and other heavy subjects that the Avengers film franchise might not be quite ready for) other than the title. Joss Whedon will return to both write and direct. You can even watch the teaser (which was unveiled at SDCC 2013) right here!