This weekend saw the name of the AVENGERS ASSEMBLE sequel officially titled AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. With a recent comic book arc of the same name, many presumed that this would work as the basis for the film. Apparently that will not be the case. In the comic book world, Ultron is the creation of Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man. The character, largely down to Pym’s intellect and mental instability, sees it has his mission to completely wipe out mankind. With Hank Pym not yet set to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, questions have most definitely been raised. Writer/director Joss Whedon spoke to Movieweb to elaborate on the film.

Revealing that Ultron will have a new origin, Whedon said, “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.”

Early speculation claims that Tony Stark may be the creator of Ultron. Whedon addressed this, saying, “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.”

With Ultron being essentially a killing machine, surely some blood will have to be spilt in order to make the character seem like a legitimate threat. Early rumours suggest that Hawkeye may get taken out for this purpose. Asked about this, and the scale of the sequel, Whedon said, “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 round, 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.”

Expect to be hearing a lot more on this film over the next few years.

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is set to bring Marvel’s PHASE TWO of films to a close on 1st May, 2015.

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