Today's News: another Avenger down?

Another short MS scoop:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/150570/elizabeth_olsen_in_avengers_age_of_ultron

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Elizabeth Olsen's other work (according to her resumé on IMDb, there hasn't actually been that much of it anyway). She seems a bit too young for the role of Scarlet Witch, but I reckon the hex casting female Avenger is supposed to be of a lesser age than we´re used to in this film. After all, she's a year older than Aaron Taylor-Johnson who's playing her twin brother Quicksilver, so at least that´s consistent. I'm just glad they kept the pair together as they ought to be, instead of splitting them up, as is allegedly the case in X-Men: Days of Future Past, where Quicks is present but Scarlet is not (shenanigans!). From what I've heard of Olsen, she's a capable young actress, and so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt (not that she needs mine or anybody else's of course). It'll be fascinating to see how Whedon and the writers are gonna incorporate brother and sister into Age of Ultron without referring to their mutant nature. I trust Whedon to honour the source material while being resourceful enough to work his way around such copyright issues. And I hope he'll write some kick-ass sibling dialogue (see what I did there?) between the two of them, since providing characters with credible and catchy phrases is what he does best. Nevermind the superspeed running and probability curses being thrown around, that's all secondary really.

Today's News: Hot off Comic-Con 2013

A double portion of news today from MS, but Comic-Con tends to have that effect everywhere on the Internet:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/148730/avengers_2_gaat_avengers_age_of_ultron_heten

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/148731/nieuwe_trailer_the_hunger_games_catching_fire

So we have a new trailer for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Avengers 2 got itself a name and hence, a lot more speculation for the fans to endure for the next few years. The former news is the least intriguing, since this trailer would have been released around this time of big summer blockbuster movies anyway, to get people excited about the upcoming big winter movies. It's a good new trailer, with more emphasis on character and emotion than on story and action like the teaser featured. It's agreeable to see Catching Fire won't ignore such pivotal aspects, even if they lead towards a major Twilight-y love triangle - you know, the type with one girl and two boys, and nobody seems to opt for a simple threesome - we can't care less about. The notion of another Hunger Games with Katniss as the star seems redundant, but is a vital strategy for the regime to kill off the champions of the resistance against its regime, and of course this time it won't be just teenagers killing each other, as they have rebellious plans of their own. Blatant recycling of plot elements seems absent for now. And with a stellar cast like this (Philip Seymour Hoffman!) this is still a sequel to look forward to, despite all the teeny aspects.

Naturally it's the second installment of The Avengers, fortunately still directed and written by Joss Whedon, that we can look forward to even more. We'll have to wait a while longer for it, but we still have ample Marvel movies leading up to it (though it seems Ant-Man will now follow this finale of Phase 2 instead of precede it, thus paving the way for Marvel's Phase 3). But with 50 years of Marvel Universe history there is plenty to think on as details slowly dripple in. One such detail, a major one in fact, is the official title, which now has been revealed to be Avengers: Age of Ultron. It leaves no mistake who the villain of the piece will be: the genocidal, haywire android Ultron, originally built by Henry "Hank" Pym (Ant-Man/Yellowjacket/Giant Man/wife beater). In this post for MovieScene I suggested Pym will most likely be established in Avengers 2 via his connection to Ultron, and afterwards fully fleshed out in his own Ant-Man flick, but time has already caught up with that, as it has now been confirmed Pym will not be present in Avengers: Age of Ultron at all. Whedon has stated the origin of Ultron will be explored via other means, the most obvious idea being Tony Stark will create the misantropic machine instead while assembling new Iron Man suits (after his last single adventure he needs some after all). This remains to be seen no doubt. Maybe Whedon will surprise us, as he has done before in the past (he's a fairly talented writer after all). The other big question now is whether Ultron will be portrayed by a guy in a suit - he is rather anthropomorphic so it's not inconceivable - or whether he will be a fully computer generated character with the voice work done by some incredible actor. My best bet? Get Andy Serkis to perform his usual mo-cap magic. You can't go wrong with that route.

But where's Thanos in all this? Great idea, Whedon, getting us all worked up on a villain-to-end-all-villains and then seemingly ignoring him! Or could he be in Guardians of the Galaxy after all...?