Avengers: Age of Ultron

With Carl Potts arriving tomorrow, the following seemed pretty appropriate to post about.  I should hope that most of you are aware that there is in fact an Avengers movie franchise, brought to us by Marvel Studios.  This franchise has brought us three Iron Man films, one Thor film with another shortly on the way (October 30), one Hulk film, one Captain America film with another on the horizon, and of course the huge blockbuster that was the Avengers last summer.  

The Avengers grossed $1.5 billion dollars worldwide in Summer 2012.  This gave it the title of "Most Successful Week of All Time" and places it third for "All Time Box Office" (behind James Cameron's Avatar and Titanic).  I personally saw this film 3 times in theaters, which I don't often do.  With the intense box office numbers, it came as no surprise when Marvel Studios announced in July that there would be a sequel to The Avengers and it would be titled "The Avengers: Age of Ultron".  

At the end of The Avengers, there is a short teaser that features Marvel villain, Thanos (see right).  

With the announcement of Age of Ultron, the rumors and speculation that Thanos would be the next villain for The Avengers 2 were readily abandoned and speculation as to who would play Ultron immediately commenced.  As of the end of August, Marvel Studios announced that James Spader would play the role of Ultron. Spader has most recently been in the spotlight for his new show, The Blacklist, which scored top ratings for its time slot last Monday evening.  Spader has just recently sat down with Joss Whedon, the director of Avengers, and his also gotten his entire body scanned to assist with CGI and the creation of Ultron (Spader and Ultron below).

For Spader there will be a fair amount of travel involved if The Blacklist sees itself renewed, as the Avengers sequel is being shot at Shepperton Studios in England (and The Blacklist is of course shot in LA).  

The other recent tidbit announced for this movie comes directly from director Joss Whedon, who has promised that the Avengers sequel will feature even more of Black Widow.  He recently said the following:

"Natasha is a huge part of the sequel because you do want to concentrate on the people who don't have their own franchises. Although she in 'Cap 2,' [and] she's great. She was the most fun for me because she's not a hero, you know, and it's something that I read—and I feel bad that I can't remember who wrote the book—but it's in one of the books explaining, 'These guys are heroes, you are a spy. It's a different thing—it's a different skill set—and you don't have their moral high ground or any of that good stuff.' And that just makes her so interesting to me. So yeah, the stuff I've got going on with her in the second one is killer."

Many fans have been calling for a prequel for Black Widow and Hawk Eye, as they allude far too often to "Budapest" in the first Avengers film.  It seems that the origin story of them meeting may wind up to be something Marvel is too greedy to pass up. 
Overall I would say I am incredibly excited to see what Marvel is going to be producing not just from Age of Ultron, but other projects as well.