Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron (also known as The Avengers 2) is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the first sequel to 2012's Marvel's The Avengers and the eleventh installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is written and directed by Joss Whedon and features an ensemble cast that includes Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Hayley Atwell, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård, James Spader, and Samuel L. Jackson. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers must work together to defeat Ultron, a technological enemy bent on human extinction.

The sequel was announced in May 2012, after the successful release of The Avengers. Whedon, the director of the first film, was brought back on board in August and a release date was set. By April 2013, Whedon had completed a draft of the script, and casting began in June with the re-signing of Downey. Second unit filming began in February 2014 in South Africa with principal photography taking place between March and August 2014. The film was primarily shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, with additional footage filmed in Italy, South Korea, Bangladesh, New York, and various locations around England.

Two sequels, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and Avengers: Infinity War Part 2, are scheduled to be released on May 4, 2018, and May 3, 2019, respectively.

Plot
With S.H.I.E.L.D. destroyed and the Avengers needing a hiatus from stopping threats, Tony Stark jumpstarts a dormant peacekeeping program, Ultron: a self-aware, self-teaching, artificial intelligence. However, his plan backfires when Ultron decides that humans are the main enemy and sets out to eradicate them from Earth, leaving it up to Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, along with support from Falcon, Colonel Rhodes, Nick Fury and Maria Hill, to stop him. Along the way the Avengers encounter the powerful twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (aka Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch), as well as a new entity, the Vision.

Cast

 * Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man
 * Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Hulk
 * Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America
 * Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
 * Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
 * Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye
 * James Spader as Ultron
 * Thomas Kretchmann as Baron von Strucker
 * Paul Bettany as The Vision
 * Don Cheadle as Colonel Rhodes / War Machine
 * Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver
 * Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlett Witch
 * Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
 * Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon
 * Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
 * Idris Elba as Heimdall
 * Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig
 * Claudia Kim as Dr. Cho
 * Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaw

Production
In March 2012, Joss Whedon, director of the first film, stated that he would want a sequel to be "smaller. More personal. More painful. By being the next thing that should happen to these characters, and not just a rehash of what seemed to work the first time. By having a theme that is completely fresh and organic to itself." At the premiere of The Avengers, Feige said the studio had an option for Whedon to return as director. In May 2012, after the successful release of the first film, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced a sequel was in development. Most of the film's cast members were under contract to potentially appear in the sequel; however, Robert Downey, Jr. was not, as his four picture deal with Marvel expired after Iron Man 3.

At the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International, director Joss Whedon said he was undecided about directing, stating, "I have not come to a decision on directing Avengers 2. I am having too much fun with this [Firefly reunion] now." However in August 2012, Iger announced that Whedon would return to write and direct the sequel and develop the Marvel television series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., for ABC. Later in the month, Disney set a May 1, 2015 release date. When asked about his decision to return, Whedon said, "Avengers 2, it wasn't a tough decision. For a long time I thought, 'Well, it's just not going to happen.' Then when I actually started to consider it, it became so clear that I desperately wanted to say more about these characters, it would've been an easy no and it was a spectacularly easy yes. There was no wrestling." Whedon said that they intended for the film's production to not be as rushed as the first one.

In December 2012, Whedon stated that he had completed an outline for the film. In February, at the 2013 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Whedon said that death would play a theme in the sequel, and in March, he said that he looked to The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Godfather Part II (1974) as inspirations.

Feige revealed that Captain Marvel, who is scheduled to appear in her own MCU film in 2018, appeared in an early draft of the screenplay, but was removed since the character had not yet been cast, saying, “It didn’t feel like the time. We didn’t want to introduce her fully formed flying in a costume before you knew who she was or how she came to be."

Filming
Filming began on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa, having been postponed that Monday. Second unit crews shot action sequences without the main cast, to be used as background plates for scenes featuring the Hulk, in the Central Business District of Johannesburg for a period of two weeks. By mid-March, principal photography, with cinematographer Ben Davis, had begun at Shepperton Studios near London and was scheduled to film there for at least four months. On March 22, production moved to Fort Bard, Italy and continued in the Aosta Valley region through March 28. The region doubled as the fictional Eastern European nation of Sokovia, with crews replacing local storefronts with Cyrillic script. Filming in South Korea began on March 30 on the Mapo Bridge and continued through April 14 at various locations in Seoul. While in Seoul, the production was able to attach cameras to drones and race cars to get unique camera angles and footage. An artificial island on the Han River known as the Saebit Dungdungseom served as the headquarters of an IT institute featured in the film. Scenes involving Ultron's attack on parts of the city were shot in the Gangnam District.

On April 8, shooting began in the Hawley Woods in Hampshire, England. In mid–April, Hayley Atwell, who played Peggy Carter in previous MCU films, was on set at the Rivoli Ballroom in London to film a 1940s flashback sequence. In mid-June, scenes were shot at the University of East Anglia in Norwich and at Dover Castle in Kent, while in July, filming took place at a training facility for London’s Metropolitan Police Service, which doubled as a city in Sokovia. Additional filming took place in Chittagong, Bangladesh, including the Chittagong Ship Breaking Yard and in New York. On August 6, Whedon announced on social media that he had completed principal photography on Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Filming at Shepperton as well as other locations in England allowed Whedon to get a "number of different looks and textures and moods" to give the film a different palette and fresh aesthetic from its predecessor. Whedon also stated that "we shot this movie very differently [from the first film]. I was running a lot of cameras, I was shooting long lenses, which I don’t usually do," and that he aimed to shoot the film almost like a documentary. Production designer Charles Wood built an enormous, new Avengers Tower set, one of the largest set ever built for a Marvel film. The set featured multiple connected environments and levels. To create the scenes depicting how Quicksilver views the world, scenes were shot with an ultra-high-speed camera and later combined with one of Aaron Taylor-Johnson running through the same frame at regular speed.

Music
In March 2014, Brian Tyler signed on to compose the film's score, replacing the composer for the first film, Alan Silvestri, while also marking his third film collaboration with Marvel following Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World in 2013. Tyler stated that the score pays homage to John Williams' scores for Star Wars, Superman, and Raiders of the Lost Ark and references the scores for the Iron Man, Thor and Captain America films in order to create a similar musical universe, saying, "That’s the goal for sure. You have to build in nostalgia and do it upfront so you can relate to it." Danny Elfman also contributed music to the score, using Silvestri's theme from the first film to create a new hybrid theme.

Release
Avengers: Age of Ultron will make its world premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on April 13, 2015, and is scheduled for release in France, Italy, Norway and Sweden on April 22, with other territories seeing releases in the following days, before it is released in North America on May 1, in 3D and IMAX 3D. In September 2014, TNT acquired the US cable broadcast rights for Avengers: Age of Ultron to air two years after its theatrical release. On March 4, 2015, ticket pre-sales for the film began. Variety noted "The two-month gap between advance sales and the release is much wider than normal and reflects the heavy fan anticipation for" the film.

Box office
According to Boxoffice magazine, Avengers: Age of Ultron is projected to earn $217 million on its opening weekend in North America, surpassing the $207 million generated by The Avengers and making it the biggest feature-film debut of all time. Boxoffice chief analyst Phil Contrino said that projection was based on analyses of posts on Facebook and Twitter, with the number and intensity of positive posts on Twitter being the strongest researchers had seen for any movie since Boxoffice started monitoring the site. Additionally, Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen Group, agreed with Boxoffice '​s projection of the film earning over $200 million in its opening weekend, but felt that the total global box office earnings would not be as large as the $1.5 billion the first film earned.

Critical reception
Early reviews for Avengers: Age of Ultron have been very positive. The film holds a rating of 85% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.5 based on 42 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Exuberant and eye-popping, Avengers: Age of Ultron serves as a suitably satisfying sequel, reuniting its predecessor's unwieldy cast with a few new additions and a worthy foe." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 72% out of 100%, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

The film already holds a strong rating of 9.3 on iMDB with users giving the film largely positive reviews, calling it an "Oscar caelibar", calling it "better than the first movie" and particulary praising the action sequences and the "Oscar worthy" performances of the actors, especially that of Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johanson, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Mark Ruffalo and titling James Spader's Ultron as a "show stealer".

Future sequels
Two Avengers sequels, Avengers: Infinty War - Part 1 and Avengers: Infinity War - Part 2 are both scheduled to be released 2018 and 2019.