Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron – What You Should Know

by Sandrine Sahakians · May 1, 2015

After the huge success of The Avengers, Joss Whedon is back with a sequel, Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron featuring our favorite superheroes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Once again the team must save the world, but this time it’s from Ultron, a technological villain hell-bend on destroying the world.

Along for the ride are newcomers twins Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), as well as an old friend who becomes Vision (Paul Bettany).

I got a chance to attend an early screening of the movie (it was awesome!), as well as the press conference with the stars, director and producer of the film. Here are a few highlights:

– Maria (Cobie Smulders) is now under the employment of Tony Stark and working with him to privatize security.

– Joss Whedon said that his biggest challenge in making the movie is “making sure that everybody got their moment, that everybody got their through-line, that it’s connected to the movie. I have all these people. I love all these people. They’re extraordinary. But making sure that they’re not just all being served, but all within the same narrative structure, that they’re in the same movie, that it’s all connected to the main theme.”

– Joss Whedon also shared that the way he started crafting the sequel was focusing on the “little moments” between the characters that he hadn’t gotten to do yet. He added, “What conversations have they not had? What haven’t I shown? It’s never sort of the big picture stuff, it’s never “and then we can have an army of robots” – although that’s cool too – it’s always just: where do they live, or how can I get inside their hearts, what’s funny about them? Those are the moments – just, I write just reams and reams of paper just thinking about, you know, the tiniest part, that’s really the heart of the thing.”

– When asked about his performance and motion capture for the role of Ultron, James Spader answered, “I really don’t have any idea what was happening at all [everything] happened very quickly. I really was just trying to hold on and then stay on the train that was moving very, very quickly.”

– When asked about Hawkeye getting a bigger role in this movie, Jeremy Renner joked “Well, I speak in this movie, which is awesome, and I become part of the team, which is awesome.”

– Scarlett Johansson shared her thoughts on Black Widow’s state of mind at the end of the movie. She said, “I think Widow let her guard down, she was hopeful for something. I think she had this moment of false hope where she kind of put in the work and there should be some kind of personal payoff and she was ready to accept it, and she realizes that her calling is a greater one and that’s not necessarily something that she’s thrilled about, but that’s kind of what is most heroic about her is that she’s accepting the call of duty, even at her own personal loss. And I think it’s an interesting place to kind of leave her there, because there are many different directions to go.”

– When asked how he creates the differentiation between Banner and the Hulk, Mark Ruffalo joked “I was helped out by the fact that I’m green, and huge, to help me with the distinction between the two characters, so I can’t take full credit for that, except for the accent that I was using, maybe. I’m done.”

I also wanted to share 5 things you can expect/my favorite moments from the movie, which you can find in the video below.

Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is out in theaters today, May 1st. Clear your schedule if you haven’t already and go check it out for some awesome superhero action!