Joss Whedon surprised fans when he revealed that the new "Avengers" movie would be called "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and would feature the evil robot. The director said that the character was always in his plans in an interview with Total Film.
"I was pitching Ultron before I took the job on the first movie. I was like, 'I don't know if I want to do this, but for the second one, you should totally do Ultron.' Because he's been a thorn in their side as much as any other character over the years and particularly back in my history," said Whedon.
Regarding the character, he added, "He's somebody who can juice things up and he's a real problem for the Avengers. That's not always easy to find. It's not like the Vulture is really going to give them a hard time for 20 minutes."
Whedon announced the news of the title during a press conference at San Diego's Comic-Con a few weeks ago.
"We're doing our own version of the origin story of Ultron...We were crafting our own version of it where [Ultron's] own origin comes more directly from the Avengers we already know about," he explained. "The other thing is in the origin story there was Hank Pim [also known as The Ant-Man], so a lot of people assumed he was going to be in the mix, but 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 way side."
"Avengers 2: Age of Ultron" is currently in pre-production and will star Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Scarlet Johansson (Black Widow), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) and Cobie Smoulders. The new movie will start principal photography in late February or early March in 2014 and will shoot in London. Disney will later release "Avengers: Age of Ultron" in 2015.