Okay, before we dive in here, just a few pointers:
(1) We expect that everyone reading this has either seen every Marvel movie to date, so there’s no chance of spoilers, or hasn’t and doesn’t mind a few spoilers here and there, so there’s not going to be any “You RUINED The Winter Soldier for me!” in the comments section below, and (2) if our crazy prediction turns out to be true, again, you can’t come running back here and complaining that we ruined Age Of Ultron for you, in the same way you shouldn’t blame a horoscope for taking the surprise out of your day ahead.
Okay, ready? Here we go: Joss Whedon is going to kill off most, if not ALL, of The Avengers in Age Of Ultron.
See? We told you it was going to be a little crazy, but there is a certain type of reasoning behind our madness, so let us explain. First of all, while the Marvel movies since Avengers Assembled have ranged from very good to great – Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians Of The Galaxy – they’ve all suffered from a startlingly similar third act which involves aerial battles above a populated area. Coupled with that is the fact that we’ve yet to see a single person of note to be killed off within the Marvel universe: Loki stabbed Agent Coulson to death in The Avengers only for him to return to life for Agents Of SHIELD, while The Winter Solider assassinated Nick Fury only for it to have been a total fake-out.
The reason we mention this is because Joss Whedon, the very talented writer/director who is also behind the likes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Serenity, The Cabin In The Woods and Toy Story is not afraid to kill off his much loved characters, and he is certainly not afraid to completely turn things on their head.
There has been a lot of talk about each actor’s contract and how many they’re obligated to return for, and there’s already mention of Robert Downey Jnr potentially not doing any more standalone Iron Man movies, as well as Chris Evans and Mark Ruffalo chatting about what they plan on getting up to after their tenure ends within Marvel.
Looking forward to Age Of Ultron, we’ve got Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olson potentially joining the ranks as Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch. Passed that, we’ve got Paul Rudd coming into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Ant-Man, and the as-yet-unannounced actor set to play the role of Doctor Strange. Passed that again, and Marvel have announced release dates for Captain America 3 and Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, but failed to mention what the other SEVEN pre-set release dates were for.
At this year’s Comic Con, where DC movies arrived with footage of Batman VS Superman: Dawn Of Justice, showed off their new Wonder Woman, and went on to announce NINE new DC movies between now and 2020, Marvel were conspicuously absent with new information. Is this because they’re holding their murderous cards so close to their chest that they don’t want to give the game away?
Within the Marvel Comics, the roster of The Avengers is a constantly changing thing, but is also viable to simply rebooting and starting from scratch. The decision that the Marvel Cinematic Universe needs to make is whether they want to go down the James Bond route of just having different actors play the same roles, or the Doctor Who route of having different actors playing different variations of the same characters. For example, both Falcon and The Winter Soldier take over from Steve Rogers as Captain America, Colonel Rhodes amongst others takes over from Tony Stark inside the Iron Man suit, and so on.
But there’s also the increasingly large pool to take from, as on top of the aforementioned upcoming superhero additions, there’s rumours involving Black Panther and The Inhumans getting their own movies at some point, as well as the recent Netflix series announced for the likes of Daredevil, Luke Cage and Iron Fist.
So will it actually happen? It’s certainly possible. It would solve a lot of issues all at once, including resetting the game for people accusing Marvel of playing it too safe, rejigging the cast that in some cases we will have seen play the same character at least five times already (we’re looking at you Robert Downey Jnr, who will be 50 years old when Age Of Ultron hits cinema screens), and it will open up new avenues within the Marvel Universe itself.
Would we like it to happen? Against our basic love for all the characters, yes, we would. No longer would a superhero movie feel safe, and whatever the reason is that wipes them all out – be it Ultron in this movie, or potentially the focus of big bad guy Thanos in Avengers 3 should they survive the first sequel – it will require whoever is left to have to team up with Guardians Of The Galaxy and/or other new Marvel additions to take them down. And isn’t THAT a movie you’d absolutely love to see? Of course it is! Kill them all, Whedon, we’re right behind you!