By now you know that “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” features…well…practically everybody already introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe aside from the cosmic, “Guardians of The Galaxy” side of things. But beyond cameos, flashbacks, and closing credit sequences, two of the new major introductions are Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch.
Of course, in the Marvel comics universe, the characters are mutants, and Quicksilver has already been introduced in 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men” series, specifically in “X-Men: Days Of Future Past,” but because of some legal loophole — or because the characters were members of both the X-Men and The Avengers in the comics — both Disney/Marvel and Fox own the rights. The caveat is that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch cannot be referred to as mutants and their backstory as Magneto’s siblings is surely not going to come into play in ‘Ultron.’
So how do they get introduced? Well, a new featurette (as well as two new photos from the film) explains their introduction into the series, along with an interview with ‘Ultron’ director Joss Whedon and the two actors that play these characters — Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver) and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch). So is there rivalry between the Fox and Marvel?
“I think the ‘X-Men’ movies are great,” Taylor-Johnson said. “I don’t fear things like that. I feel like without Scarlet Witch, you haven’t really got Quicksilver. We’re not just, like, a little moment in this. We have a story. We have a history. Yeah, OK, he’s fast as fuck, but who cares? It’s just a super power, you know? You’re gonna want to know about Tony Stark in order to love Iron Man. We want to know [Bruce] Banner before we can understand why he’s so destructive as Hulk.”
For deeper MCU fans, evidently it’s not clear if Quicksilver and Scarlet will stick around for more films. Taylor-Johnson would only say that his status “is sort of up in the air,” and Olsen said her commitment is “this [film], and another.”
In other Marvel related news, Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel (sometimes known as Ms. Marvel) has been long rumored to be appearing somewhere in “Age Of Ultron.’ Those rumors popped up again this week, but for what it’s worth, Nerdist says they are wrong. The latter publication says while we will see Danvers down the road — duh, her own movie is summer 2018 — but not in ‘Ultron.’ Though they do leave open the possibility that it could happen in a post-credits scene (and fwiw, another outlet says a female director is being sought for the "Captain Marvel" movie). We’ll leave it up to you to argue over. Watch the ‘Avengers’ featurette below. ‘Age Of Ultron’ opens up May 1st.
