Following his big title reveal at the San Diego Comic-Con last month, writer/director Joss Whedon talked more with Total Film magazine about The Avengers: Age of Ultron. First reiterating that the Marvel sequel will have an original story, Whedon says, “It’s not based on the series. Honestly, we went through a lot of titles – Underoos Of Ultron. None of them landed…Underoos would’ve been better because of the alliteration. But Age of Ultron really stuck. We were like, ‘It’s a book, but we’re still going to use it’.”
Whether we'll see Ultron's creator, Henry Pym, or the android that Ultron himself created, the Vision, Whedon reassures, “We’re not going to see Pym and all the accoutrements. Ultron is more central to the Avengers as they are. But we will explore the idea of lineage, because he was created by us and we’ve got to own that… Then we have the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and I think that’s plenty, because Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch did not begin their time as friends of the Avengers, so there’s going to be a lot of, well, conflict.”
When asked (yet again) about the possibility of a 'multi-studio crossover' film, Joss Whedon says, “That’s not the plan. It would be cool but I think right now I already have a ton of very talented actors in my movie playing a ton of characters, and I’m about to add a few more. So I’m not like, ‘How can we get more licensed characters because I want to kill myself and make a nine-hour movie.’” It's no secret that the Avengers and X-Men won't share the big screen any time soon, but it was believed that Thanos would provoke Earth's mightiest heroes to assemble with the Guardians of the Galaxy. This obviously isn't happening in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, as Whedon says, “We have to stay grounded. It’s part of what makes the Marvel universe click – their relationship to the real world. It’s science-fiction, and Thanos is not out of the mix, but Thanos was never meant to be the next villain. He’s always been the overlord of villainy & darkness.”
So far starring Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Cobie Smulders, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, with Kick-Ass actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson in negotiations to join, Marvel's The Avengers: Age of Ultron is written and directed by Joss Whedon, and is scheduled to start filming in March in the United Kindom for a May 1, 2015 release date.