We can profess to hate spoilers, but if everyone truly did, we wouldn’t bother asking about the next movie and teaser culture wouldn’t be thriving. Everyone has differing preferences for how much they want to know, but there are plenty of people trying to dig up as much info as they can because we want to be in the know, but not know too much. There was plenty of digging for Avengers: Age of Ultron pretty much from the moment the fire began to die down on The Avengers. I’ve looked back through our archives and traced how the rumors and information we received turned out now that the highly anticipated sequel has finally arrived. Read on for what turned out to be true or false. This article contains major spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Every item follows The Avengers, which was released on May 4, 2012.
September 12, 2012 – Joss Whedon on the Team’s Dynamic
Rumor: Joss Whedon gets about as vague as he can go with how the sequel will handle the team:
“The creation of the team is not the happy ending. It is the beginning of something that is complex and difficult, and now I get to dig a little deeper. And maybe, while I’m digging, just twist that knife. And that’s exciting for me.”
Result: True It should be noted that comments like these that are so broad that they easily encompass the truth. The sequel will have more conflict? No way!
October 8, 2012 - Emily Blunt and Ruth Wilson Being Eyed to Play Ms. Marvel in THE AVENGERS 2
Rumor: Emily Blunt and Ruth Wilson were being eyed to play Captain Marvel, who would appear in the film.
Result: False Captain Marvel is not in The Avengers 2. She will, however, have her own movie, which will open on November 2, 2018. It’s possible she could appear in a Marvel film before that. However, it’s worth noting that Captain Marvel was in an early draft of the script and Whedon fought to include her as part of the new Avengers team.
February 3, 2013 – The Avengers 2 Will Set up Standalone Hulk Sequels
Rumor: The third act or credits scene will set the stage for a new Hulk film based on the comic series Planet Hulk.
Result: False Joss Whedon himself dispelled this rumor a month later saying, “Well I’m really not supposed to comment, but no, that’s nonsense.” March 6, 2013 – Kevin Feige Says It Would Be Fun to Rotate the Team
Rumor: When asked if the film would follow the comics in changing the Avengers team members, producer Kevin Feige replied:
“I think it’s not a secret that Joss and I and all of us at Marvel think that part of the fun of Avengers is the rotating team, for sure [laughs].”
Result: True The members of The Avengers at the end of the movie are Captain America, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, War Machine, and Vision.
April 25, 2013 – Whedon First Teases Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver
Rumor: In an interview, Joss Whedon said the following:
“I’ve got these two characters, two of my favorite characters from the comic book, a brother-sister act. They’re in the movie.”
Result: True This one was pretty thinly veiled, so it’s not a surprise that it turned out to be true.
May 1, 2013 – Kevin Feige Comments on the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver Rumor
Rumor: Jumping off of Whedon’s hint a week earlier, Feige chose to remain tightlipped at this point: Some online rumors turn out to be true, however. A source confirms to EW that the twin characters Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch will be joining The Avengers 2, which Whedon hinted at recently when he said he was writing a brother-sister duo into the movie. Feige maintains a poker face on that scoop, saying only: “I’m not confirming or denying. The draft could change six months from now.
Result: True The plot did not change six months from then.
August 20, 2013 – Elizabeth Olsen Rumored to Play Scarlet Witch
Rumor: In their search for an actress to play Wanda Maximoff, Marvel cast their eye on Elizabeth Olsen, who was riding high off her performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene. She was in contention after Saoirse Ronan reportedly passed on the role.
Result: True She got the gig, and she’s quite good in the role once she becomes more than a plot device.
December 20, 2013 – Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch Will Work with Baron Von Strucker
Rumor: At the time we reported “[Von Strucker] will be responsible for bringing both Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch into the fray, and it seems that the new characters are actually on his side, at least at the outset.
Result: True That’s exactly what happened. However, early reports said Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible II) and Marton Csokas (The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King) were being eyed for the role. It ultimately went to Thomas Kretschmann (Valkyrie).
February 6, 2014 – Captain America: The Winter Soldier Sets Up Avengers: Age of Ultron
Rumor: This report stated that Captain America: The Winter Soldier would “set critical events in motion” and that they would “be reflected” in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Result: Kind of There are connections, but they’re minor. The Avengers bring down the remnants of HYDRA and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) is on the lookout for the Winter Soldier. The biggest connection is the credits tag, which I wouldn’t qualify as a big part of Captain America’s plot.
February 7, 2014 – Details on Vision’s Costume
Rumor: Here was the description from an “insider” at Shepperton Studios where they filmed Avengers: Age of Ultron:
It has a helmet akin to the Iron Man armor, but it’s designed more like a face than a smooth Stark helmet. The iconic yellow and green are present in the design, but it’s more metallic shades than bright ‘comic book colors.’ They said it reminds them somewhat of the T-100 from Terminator 2 but it’s not as shiny. The yellow metal “liquid” bits seem to light up. This may or may not happen since there are two designs for that section. One lights up the other doesn’t. That’s the only difference. The cape is present, but they say it appears to only “pop out” when in flight mode. The cap sports some similar shades of yellow as the body. The “neck pieces” are the same yellow but they seem to shift positions from “standing” (for lack of a better word) to “flight mode.”
Result: False This is pretty much all false except that Vision does have a cape, although the cape is always present, not just when Vision is flying.
February 13, 2014 – Black Widow Will Have a Larger Role
Rumor: Black Widow became a fleshed-out character in the first Avengers. Kevin Feige said we’d get even more of her in Age of Ultron:
“We start filming the next Avengers film at the end of March. [Black] Widow’s part in that is very big. We learn more about her past and learn more about where she came from and how she became in that film. The notion of exploring that even further in her own film would be great, and we have some development work with that."
Result: Not Really Black Widow has about the same amount of screen time. We do learn a little bit more her past, but as for “her own film”, no dice. If she does get her own movie, it won’t be until Phase Four, which begins in either late 2019 or 2020 at the earliest.
February 17, 2014 – The Opening of the Film Takes Place in Johannesburg
Rumor: The first ten minutes of the film were going to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa according to Gauteng Film Commission’s (GFC) Desmond Mthembu.
Result: False The opening takes place in the mountains of Sokovia. The Avengers go to Africa later in the movie.
June 10, 2014 – The Opening 20 Minutes of the Film Are Revealed
Rumor: Here’s what was reported: The film apparently picks up directly after the mid-credits tag from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as the Avengers are already assembled and are targeting the Hydra outpost headed up by Baron von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann), who wields Loki’s staff and is flanked by Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). The trio take on the invading Avengers. This is the opening action set piece of Avengers: Age of Ultron… In a true Whedon-esque moment, after the Avengers reign supreme they head back to Avengers Tower (previously Stark Tower) and have a party. Yes, we will apparently see Thor, Cap, etc. getting down and celebrating their victory. Additionally, we reported that there was a burgeoning relationship with Bruce Banner and Black Widow, but Bruce didn’t want it to go further because he was afraid he’d Hulk out if they became intimate. Additionally, Thor would no longer be dating Jane Foster.
Result: Mostly True The overall plot is correct. However, Von Strucker never uses Loki’s staff, and Jane and Thor are still together.
June 19, 2014 – Information on New Uniforms and Ultron’s Design
Rumor: Black Widow’s new outfit would light up and be able to electrocute people; the new Iron Man armor would be more red than gold; Vision “will be 100 percent Paul Bettany with his face and body all in metallic form, very shiny with gold, red, and green (as well as the yellow cape).” Ultron would have a red glow underneath his metal exterior, which would also have a mouth he could move.
Result: True All of these costume descriptions were spot-on, which isn’t too surprising since filming had been underway for months at this point.
August 28, 2014 – Marvel Rethinking Captain Marvel Introduction
Rumor: There would be a new Avengers team comprised of new and familiar faces, but Marvel was unsure about introducing Captain Marvel within a team movie.
Result: True The team at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron is different, but Captain Marvel is nowhere to be found.
November 3, 2014 – Idris Elba Teases Two Cameos
Rumor: Idris Elba said he was doing a scene with Chris Hemsworth and a scene with Tom Hiddleston.
Result: Half True. Heimdall is in the movie in Thor’s Scarlet Witch-induced vision, but Loki is nowhere to be found. Turns out his appearance was left on the cutting room floor, as Marvel thought the movie was feeling “overstuffed.”
Closing Thoughts Looking over these results, it looks like most of the rumors are true, which means the sites reporting them likely had their hands on the script or talked to someone on the inside. So if you wanted to get ahead of the movie, you probably could, although some of the biggest reveals—Quicksilver’s death, the composition of the new Avengers team—remained a secret, or at least, we at Collider decided to stay away from stories that were willing to spoil them. To be clear, I doubt anyone was purposely trying to disseminate false information or put out scoops in bad faith. It’s a game of telephone where the dialogue is shifting before one person can even pass it to another. Whedon’s first cut of the film was three hours long and he tweaked the script every day. What could have been true at one point is now false simply because for whatever reason—be it rewriters, reshoots, or cuts—it didn’t end up in the final version. Perhaps the opening 20 minutes of the film did include the information about Jane and Hulk worried about sex. Ultimately, we can only go by the finished version, and while the rumor mill and scoops are an attempt to look ahead, what we see isn’t always clear.
[Note: This article was previously published at an earlier date, but in an effort to continually highlight Collider’s great original content, we’ve bumped it up to the front page.]
