SDCC 13: The Age Of Ultron Is Upon Us

Marvel Studios brought Joss Whedon out on stage for one final reveal at their San Diego Comic-Con panel and he showed a brief teaser which not only included a first look at Ultron, but also the title of the sequel; The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
After the Guardians of the Galaxy’s panel, Kevin Feige stands up to leave and just as he gets to the end of the stage, he doubles back and introduces Joss Whedon. Crowd goes nuts, Joss waves and says “I don’t have anything to say, but I have one thing to add.” The lights go down and we hear the Avengers theme.

Iron Man’s helmet appears, audience cheers. Sound clips from all the Marvel movies start playing. “I am Iron Man,” “I’m always angry,”etc. I don’t remember all of them, but they build to the end of the Avengers where Sam Jackson says they’ll be back when they are needed.

All the while the camera sweeps in close to the Iron Man helmet. It’s getting crunched, dented, misshapen. Sparks fly, crunching noises are heard. When we get that final Avengers quote the camera pulls back and the Iron Man helmet has been reforged as Ultron’s helmet, an angry red light glowing out of his mouth and eye holes. Cue my eardrums being punctured by screaming fangirls (and boys, I’ll be fair).

Marvel caught up with Joss Whedon at the San Diego Comic-Con to talk all things The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Surprisingly, the writer and director revealed a lot more than any of us may have expected! After saying that he always wanted to use Ultron as the villain in a sequel, Whedon would go on to clear up some misconceptions that the title has caused. “Well, because there was a book called ‘Age of Ultron’ quite recently, a lot of people have assumed that is what we’re doing, but that is not the case. We’re doing our own version of the origin story for Ultron. In the origin story, there was Hank Pym, so a lot of people assumed that he will be in the mix. He’s not. We’re basically taking the things from the comics for the movies that we need and can use. A lot of stuff has to fall by the wayside. We don’t have to have him (Pym). It works very simply — this is Marvel cinema, not Marvel comics. One thing [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige has a genius for is knowing what to hold onto and what to let go of. You can invoke the feeling you had and play with the characters you love and remain true to the needs of the film.”

So, if Hank Pym doesn’t create Ultron, who does? Well, Tony Stark seems to be the most obvious candidate, especially after Iron Man 3 showed that he had managed to create sentient versions of his armour. “We’re crafting our own version of it where his origin comes more directly from The Avengers we already know about. It’s a little bit darker than the other film because Ultron is in the house. There’s a science fiction theme that wasn’t there in the other one. Ultron is definitely something that evolves, so we’re going to get together a couple of different iterations. Nothing can be translated exactly as it was from the comics; particularly Ultron.” Finally, he was asked about the scale of the movie and which character he is most enjoying writing and revealed: “It’s very much a global Avengers film. A lot of the movie has to do with their place not just in America, but the world. Part of the fun for me, definitely this time around, is writing Hawkeye. He did get possessed pretty early by a bad guy and had to walk around all scowly for most of the movie so now it’s nice to actually have the character there and see him interact with the other guys.”

Whedon was also asked about how the Avengers sequel will connect to ABC’s new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tv show, specifically about Coulsons involvement to which he said that Agent Phil Coulson is currently not in his draft of the film. However, he didn’t rule out a possible change in the plan of action admitting, “He could. Right now it’s not something I’m pursuing because I have so much going on in “Avengers” 2. Finding out that Coulson is alive would be an entire B story, and I already have too much movie. That’s better than the other thing.” Whedon also discussed Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and the possibility of the character appearing on S.H.I.E.L.D. Whedon stated that they have to walk a fine line with crossing over into the films, “Well, I don’t need to see that movie. I saw it on TV.”

I guess we’ll all have to sit back and see how this all comes together before Avengers: Age Of Ultron hits theaters on May 1st 2015.