20 facts you might not know about 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'

Talk of a second Avengers film began before the first movie even hit theaters. The idea of a sequel appealed to Whedon, who wrote and directed the first film, but he wanted the story to be more “personal” and “painful” for the character. Even after the first Avengers hit theaters and was a success, Whedon said he was undecided about directing the sequel. Eventually, he would indeed return.

Another potential obstacle for Age of Ultron ? Robert Downey Jr.’s contract was finished. If he didn’t want to play Iron Man again, he didn’t have to. Fortunately, the negotiations went smoothly enough (an ungodly amount of cash tends to make that happen), and Downey and Iron Man returned.

It was Whedon’s idea to include Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, or Pietro and Wanda Maximoff as they were known in the MCU, but that meant towing a fine line. The characters are part of the X-Men lineage, and X-Men as a property belonged to 20th Century Fox. Marvel and Fox had joint custody, so to speak, so the idea of the Maximoffs being mutants had to be avoided, and their powers had to be tied to the reality of the MCU.

You know how James Bond movies would eventually take titles from Ian Fleming’s books but basically none of the stories? Read Moonraker, and then watch the film to see what we mean. Well, Whedon did that with Age of Ultron. That is a comic book story arc for Marvel, but Whedon did not adapt that story for his movie. He just liked the title and the character of Ultron and went with it.

In the Age of Ultron comics, Ultron is created by Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. However, at the time, Edgar Wright was working on his Ant-Man film, and he had the rights to the character of Pym. Whedon also figured he already had two scientists in his film — Tony Stark and Bruce Banner — and probably didn’t need a third.

Age of Ultron could have introduced Captain Marvel to the MCU early on. However, Marvel decided it “didn’t feel like the time” to do so and did not want to introduce Captain Marvel fully formed into their film franchise. Instead, she would get an origin story in 2019 with her Captain Marvel film.

Paul Bettany had been lending his voice to J.A.R.V.I.S., Stark’s A.I. quasi-assistant, for a few films. Then, Whedon asked him if he’d want to play Vision, who was introduced in Age of Ultron. Bettany was surprised. He figured since he already had a part in the MCU, he wouldn’t be in the running for another. The actor went through two hours of prosthetics and makeup for his part…only for all that to be replaced by CGI in post-production.

From the get-go, Whedon wanted James Spader to play Ultron. The director credited the actor’s “hypnotic voice that can be eerily calm and compelling .” Additionally, Spader’s face and body were motion captured for the role. As Kevin Feige said, “ We did not hire James Spader to do a robot voice.”

For the sequel, Tom Hiddleston filmed a couple of scenes as Loki, the primary villain in the first  Avengers. Ultimately, Hiddleston’s scenes were cut, leaving us with no Loki in this one.

In a decision presumably mixing world-building and “let’s not step on anybody’s toes,” the fictional Eastern European country of Sokovia is where a lot of the action takes place in Age of Ultron. Since Sokovia isn’t a real place, it needed a stand-in. Production went to the Aosta Valley region of Italy to shoot the Sokovia scenes, particularly Fort Bard.

Johansson was pregnant when filming began on Age of Ultron, so they scheduled as much of her work as possible before she started to show. Ultimately, CGI was used to hide her pregnancy to some degree since they couldn’t just have Black Widow carrying around boxes or whatever. Three stunt doubles were used, and apparently, they all looked so much like the actress that Chris Evans found himself starting a conversation with who he thought was Johansson, only to realize a few minutes later it was a stunt double.

As we noted, Spader actually acted out the motion capture for Ultron. Even though at 5’10’’, he’s not a short man, Spader is not as tall as the massive Ultron. Spader would act with antennae on his head that had red balls on top of them, which stood in for Ultron’s eyes. That’s where the actors were supposed to look, but Olsen was evidently so taken with Spader’s performance as Ultron that she often found herself looking at him and had to be prompted to look at the red balls. Acting is a weird job.

Taylor-Johnson wasn’t sure he wanted to play Pietro, worried that it would be too time-consuming and he might get locked into a lengthy Marvel contract (even though, spoiler, Pietro doesn’t make it out of Age of Ultron alive). However, when he found out that Olsen would be playing Wanda, he was much more comfortable with the part. The two had worked together on Godzilla and became good friends.

Wanda doesn’t fight like most superheroes since she uses her magic to do her dirty work. Instead of having her train with fight coordinators, Olsen trained with dancers. Her moves were meant to be more like a dance than a fight.

The Maximoffs are called by their names and never referred to as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The Avengers also tend to call each other by their real names. There are a lot of Tonys and Natashas and Steves, but not so many Iron Mans or Black Widows. For example, Clint Barton is only called “Hawkeye” once in the entire film. The person who does it? His wife.

This may be Lee’s most significant cameo in a Marvel movie. He plays a military veteran at Stark’s party. When Lee’s character gets drunk, he exclaims, “Excelsior!” This was Lee’s longtime catchphrase, and he would use it as a sign-off in Marvel comics.

The Avengers, and the success of the MCU to this point, bought Whedon a lot of leeway. It also bought him a huge production runway. Reportedly, Age of Ultron cost $365 million to make. That was the second most of all time, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, even if you adjust for inflation.

We get a cameo from Thanos in the middle of the credits for Age of Ultron. However, Marvel movies also typically have a little scene after the credits. That’s not the case with Age of Ultron. Whedon had struck big with the “shawarma scene” at the end of the Avengers credits and felt like he couldn’t top that.

Whedon openly admitted he was at odds with Marvel executives over the final cut of Age of Ultron. Apparently, the bigwigs at Marvel did not like the scenes at Clint Barton’s farm or the dream sequences. They also asked to cut down the scene between Thor and Dr. Selvig, which did happen. Whedon also mentioned that he had wanted Captain Marvel and Spider-Man to show up at the end of the movie, which, if nothing else, was probably a smart ploy to cater to comic-book diehards. This would end up being Whedon’s last Marvel movie. Since Age of Ultron, his reputation has sunk significantly.

When you have the second-most-expensive movie ever made — not to mention a reported $180 million dropped on marketing — on your hands, your film needs to hit it big. Well, Age of Ultron delivered on that front. It made $84.46 million domestically on its opening day — the second-highest opening-day total ever — and took off from there. Ultimately, it earned $459 million domestically and $1.403 billion worldwide. While it would finish as the fourth-highest-grossing movie of 2015, it was, for a moment, the fifth-highest-grossing movie ever. That’s not accounting for inflation, of course.