The Avengers: Age of Ultron - Official Discussion/Announcements thread

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'Iron Man 3' Heads for $170M Weekend After $68M in Friday Box-Office Debut

Disney's and Marvel's "Iron Man 3’ is on track to kick off the summer movie season with a $170 million opening weekend at the box office, after rocketing to $68 million on its first day of release.

It won't match the record-breaking debut of Disney’s "The Avengers," the Marvel superhero mashup that ignited last summer with a record-breaking $207 million. But if it stays on its current pace, "Iron Man 3" has a good shot at the second-best three-day opening ever. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," which took in $169.1 million in 2011, currently holds that slot.

"Iron Man 3" entered into its North American debut with plenty of momentum from overseas since opening in most of the world last week. After taking in $43 million internationally on Friday, the foreign total for the superhero sequel is $388 million, and $456 million worldwide.

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/articl...ce-debut-89401

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While it’s exciting to look ahead to Marvel’s Phase Two slate post-Iron Man 3, all roads lead to one of the most anticipated sequels in recent memory: The Avengers 2.

Steve recently spoke with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, and during their extended conversation Feige talked quite a bit about how Iron Man 3 gives audiences an idea of what to expect from The Avengers 2.

“Well Joss has said it on the record in the past, it’s not about going bigger. It’s not about, ‘And this time there will be five more explosions in this section!’ I mean certainly you want to up the ante, you want to exceed people’s expectations, but I think there are various ways of doing that and Iron Man 3 is a very, very good test for us of doing exactly that. The first movie we make after The Avengers has our hero spending more time out of the suit than any of the other movies; that seems potentially counter-intuitive to some people, but that was exactly why we did it. We didn’t want to say, ‘Oh now it has to be bigger and he fights 100 people in armored suits.’ Yeah the action sequences are big, there’s more action in Iron Man 3 than in the other two movies, but at the same time it’s a much deeper and a more exploratory character journey on the heels of our biggest spectacle with The Avengers.”

“We’ve been consistent in talking about this leading up to The Avengers: what is most interesting to us and why we hired Joss Whedon in the first place is the interaction between the characters. That’s more fun to us than the massive action scenes that are gonna have to come with it that we’re gonna have to figure out, and we’re gonna have to be clever and raise the bar, but already the scenes that Joss has of just the characters sitting around and interacting are hilarious and are awesome and are moving and a notch or two above the first movie, and to me that’s where you wanna top yourself.”

http://collider.com/the-avengers-2-n...e-kevin-feige/

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'The Avengers 2' Will be Titled 'The Avengers: Age of Ultron'

Joss Whedon and the folks at Marvel unveiled a surprise bombshell tonight as they revealed that the villain in the 2015 superhero sequel "The Avengers 2" is not going to be the giant purple alien Thanos after all — as was teased in the after credits scene at the end of "The Avengers" — but rather the team's number one archenemy in the comics, Ultron.

Naturally, that news sent fanboys and fangirls around the world into swoons of excitement. But for everyone else, there was one itsy bitsy question: Who the hell is Ultron?

Ultron, who first appeared in 1968's Avengers #54-55, has major personal ties to two members of the team that haven't actually appeared in Marvel's movies at all: Hank Pym and The Vision.

Created by super-genius scientist Hank Pym (aka Ant-Man, though he may not be the guy inside that costume when Edgar Wright's "Ant-Man" movie hits theaters in 2015), Ultron began life as the world's first true artificial intelligence. However, Hank made one mistake: He apparently programmed Ultron to be a complete d-bag. Before long, Ultron had upgraded his hardware and operating systems several times — building a indestructible robot body made so deadly even Thor fears him — and, armed with a major Oedipal complex, he set out to destroy his "father" Hank Pym and the rest of the Avengers.

This is where things really get complicated, because in order to do this, he decided to create his own deadly robotic minion, The Vision. He then sent Vision to infiltrate and destroy the team from within, but when Vision ended up becoming sentient himself, he had a change of heart and joined the team instead to fight on the side of good.

As a result, most of Ultron's appearances through the decades have revolved around this deadly family feud, with Ultron trying to destroy both his "father" and his "son," with the rest of humanity being collateral damage. And given that the Vision's mutant wife, the Scarlet Witch, is already confirmed to be in "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" — and that Vin Diesel is widely rumored to be in talks with Marvel to play Vision — chances are pretty good that we'll be seeing some version of this story play out on the big screen two years from now.

Of course, it should also be noted that the specific title "The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron" refers to a comic book event called "Age of Ultron" that just ended last month. The plot of that series is so incredibly convoluted it's technically impossible to actually explain it, but given that it involved time travel to multiple alternate realities and prominently features Wolverine as one of the main characters (who can't appear unless Fox gives up the movie rights), it's pretty unlikely "Avengers 2" will be a direct adaptation.

Whatever the case, though, we can't wait. Because, trust us: Ultron is awesome.

http://collider.com/avengers-2-title...age-of-ultron/

[cheebacheeba]

Hm...yeah "Age of Ultron" the comic series would not make a good movie.
VERY convoluted, not to mention takes place with different characters, a different set of avengers that have
a: Not been established in these films at all yet
b: Been X-Men
c: Been Fantastic Four members
...The last two there won't happen due to current fox ownership of those...
If they tried to spin it differently with different characters, no, I just do not see it working. It's definitely a storyline that would take more than a movie to do it justice, and yes...too many variables....

Though something involving the creation and ascent into sentience of Ultron would be good.
They could potentially do ONE reality shift for part of the film (VS the ?5? in the comic series) by having Ultron somehow contact his future self, or a future self simply coming into existence after his creation...who would go into the past to assure his creation/ascention which would fuck with the current timeline.

Then I'd assume the Avengers of that "warped" reality would somehow gain access to the time shifting technology and go back to our current time as seen in the MCU thus far, and be working counter to Ultrons intentions.

Perhaps they could even be at odds with the existing Avengers.
I don't doubt there will likely be two versions of at least some of the core characters.
That would actually work, as long as they didn't tie it in too many knots.
Ultron is a GREAT villain.

...Too bad though, I still wish for Kang the Conquerer.

If you thought that idea seems a little convoluted to work, well...the comic would be tenfold of that.

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James Spader is Ultron, Elizabeth Olsen lands as Scarlet Witch

Hot off his appearance in "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD," Samuel L. Jackson let slip a pretty big detail about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's no secret that Scarlet Witch is going to be a character in "The Avengers: Age of Ultron," and it's also known that Elizabeth Olsen is up for the role, but according to Jackson, she managed to land it.

"I don't think we begin shooting before March of next year," Jackson says of "The Avengers: Age of Ultron." "I know we're shooting in London, that James Spader is Ultron and going to be the bad guy, and that we added Ms. [Elizabeth] Olsen, but I don't know what she's doing, if she's on the inside or the outside. I haven't seen a script."

Of course, this isn't an official Marvel confirmation, so don't take it as solid fact. But it does seem likely that the younger sister of the Olsen twins would land the role.

"The Avengers: Age of Ultron" is due in theaters on May 1, 2015.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/...-as-nick-fury/

[The Hunted]

I like Ultron, but a bit fed up we've not got Thanos! Thing with these marvel films is they all seem to be getting a bit repetitive, Iron Man 1 I enjoyed, 2 was so, so, and 3 was terrible.

Too many machines for my liking in these films. Thor, The Destroyer, was more like an Iron Man robot to me, like Thor has a chance against The Destroyer anyhow! He was made to take on The Celestials.

New Wolverine film, rubbish again, Silver Samurai was basicaly an Iron Man suit again.

Alien invaders in Avengers were rubbish, Hulk was like King Kong (Hulks my favourite character btw) and after the excitement of Thanos I end up with Ultron.

And the agent of Shields series, no comment! I loved Joss Whedon's Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and even really liked his Atonishing X-Men comic book series, but not overly a fan of these marvel things he's doing, too much humor for my liking.

I want it more serious like Sin City or Watchmen ;-(

[Action Avenue]

It doesn't matter to me what premise the filmmakers go with for the Avengers sequel as long as it's as entertaining as the first movie. Admittedly, I am as much of a geek for a great super-hero movie as I am for anything great to come from the sci-fi or horror genres.

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The first teaser trailer for The Winter Soldier premieres online Thursday; the film hits theaters April 4.

The next movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, Thor: The Dark World, premieres Nov. 8.

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‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Casts Villain Role

Thomas Kretschmann, who played Abraham van Helsing on NBC’s “Dracula,” has been cast in a villain role for the upcoming Marvel movie “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

Kretschmann is expected to play Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in the film.

James Spader, as previously announced, is playing the main villain role of Ultron.

Elizabeth Olsen was recently cast as the Scarlet Witch.

The sequel to the record-breaking “Avengers” is due to hit theaters May 1, 2015.

Joss Whedon is returning as director and Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans will all reprise their roles.

Production begins next month.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/01/1...d-kretschmann/

[roshiq]

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