The morning wire is abuzz with news that James Spader is going to play Ultron in Avengers 2. But is that going to be the voice or be an incarnation of this robotic master villain or something more? Is the production going to be similar like in how Darth Vader was crafted, with a man in a motion-capture suit and the actor overlaying his voice on top?
No detail has been mentioned in this press release, and whatever the plans are for writer/director Joss Whedon, for this mechanical terror, the casting decision and story direction is going to be well in hand.
Spader is a excellent choice. When considering his past roles include Alan Shore of Boston Legal and Daniel Jackson from the movie Stargate, he has the chops to play a suave and even awkward artificial intelligence that can menace the world. Part of the film will no doubt be an origin of this terror. And Spader is no stranger to voice over work. He’s provided his voice for Discovery Channel as the narrator for the series Discovery Atlas for the first episode.
Despite past reports, Whedon has indicated that the story will not follow the recent Marvel comic book series of the same name, the Age of Ultron.
According to TheWrap, to make the story work, Whedon said, “a lot of stuff has to fall by the wayside … we sort of are crafting our own version of it, where his origin comes from the Avengers we already know about.”
The two-year wait for the next film is going to be exciting as more casting news and plot hints come forth. All hail Ultron!
Guardians of the Galaxy may well be Marvel Entertainment’s next big thing. But when viewers are not all that acquainted with the hodge-podge cast of the galaxy’s greatest warriors, raccoons included, just who is going to voice this angry beaver?
Comic artist Mark Bagley was announced as a special guest by Emerald City Comic Con. Bagley is tentatively scheduled to appear at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle from March 28 – 30, 2014.
It’s too bad that Michael Bay’s version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cannot be shelved. Instead, this movie is being pitted into a month where it has very little competition to worry about. This film is being shoved back to play in theaters August 12th, so there’s space between this film and Transformers 4, reported Deadline.
Fandom is most likely to be divided with the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. With a second film well into production, Marvel Entertainment will rake in some of the money that Sony is putting out in marketing. And this larger studio is going to keep the cinematic rights to the web-head for as long as their webbing can hold. The Amazing Spider-Man will never be part of the Avengers Universe if the similarity of the Oscorp building to the Stark Tower, built upon the MET Tower, is any indication.
The producers at Marvel Animation must think the same visual and narrative style used in Ultimate Spider-Man can be repeated with the new series, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.