Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron

"How can you possibly hope to stop me?" "Like the old man said... Together."

- Ultron and Iron Man

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a film directed by Joss Whedon and is a sequel to The Avengers and a crossover between/sequel to Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It is the eleventh main installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the fifth in Phase Two. Avengers: Age of Ultron is scheduled for release on May 1, 2015 in North America, in 2D, 3D, and . It was confirmed by Joss Whedon that a story arc will focus on Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

It stars Chris Evans as Captain America, Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Don Cheadle as War Machine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver, Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Anthony Mackie as Falcon and with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and James Spader as Ultron.

Synopsis
Marvel Studios presents Avengers: Age of Ultron, the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, along with support from Nick Fury and Maria Hill are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to the Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.

Plot
A year has passed since S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed with the reemergance of the terrorist organization HYDRA. With S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer heading their operations, the Avengers reassemble for the first time in three years to track down and eliminate HYDRA cells themselves, using Tony Stark's resources to help.

Their latest mission brings them to the location of the alien scepter that Loki utilized during the War for Earth; the scepter is now is the possession of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, one of the notorious heads of HYDRA who has been using energy drawn from the alien weapon to power advanced weaponry, as well as attempting to empower living humans. A raid on Strucker's base in the Eastern European country of Sokovia commences, with the Avengers battling HYDRA forces to reclaim the scepter. During the battle, Strucker lets loose two of his agents: Sokovian twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, Sokovian twins who are the only humans to have survived exposure to the scepter's energy, and have gained supernatural powers as a result. Pietro can move at superhuman speeds, while Wanda possesses a powerful plethora of psionic powers. The twins are able to hold their own against the Avengers but are unable the heroes to capture Strucker. Stark finds the scepter, and Wanda attempts to stop him by using her powers to implant a vision into his mind. In his vision, Stark sees his teammates dead while the Chitauri launch an even larger invasion on Earth. Upon seeing Stark's nightmare, Wanda suspiciously allows him and the Avengers to take the scepter away before fleeing with her brother. With Strucker's arrest, HYDRA has suffered a great blow and the organization is left in a state of discord. Returning to Avengers Tower with the scepter, Stark and Bruce Banner begin studying the weapon. Their research leads to the discovery of a net of neurons that, according to Stark, could be reconfigured into an artificial intelligence stored inside the scepter's gem. The two scientists extract it for use in Stark's secret peacekeeping program – "Ultron" – designed to allow the Iron Legion to operate independently and safeguard Earth under the direction of an advanced A.I. After three days, the project is seemingly met with little success. However, while the Avengers throw a party to celebrate their recent victories, Ultron suddenly activates. Somehow already self-aware despite Stark's work having not made it that far ahead, Ultron immediately determines that the only way to save Earth is to eradicate humanity, which he deems as the prime factor in the planet's turmoils.

J.A.R.V.I.S. attempts to stop Ultron, but the more powerful A.I. appears to destroy him and then takes control of the Iron Legion armors. After the Avengers have finished their party, the team, joined by Maria Hill, James Rhodes, and Helen Cho hold a small contest to see who can lift Mjolnir. Their contest is interrupted when Ultron suddenly directs the Iron Legion to attack them, and an intense battle ensues. During that battle, Ultron has a chance to kill Dr. Cho, but mysteriously spares her life. While most of the Iron Legion is destroyed by the Avengers, one drone manages to escape with the scepter and flees to the Sokovian HYDRA base, where Ultron uses the HYDRA technology stored there to begin construction of an army of robotic drones. After the battle, the team confronts Stark about his secrecy, while Ultron – having stolen the scepter – goes to Sokovia and builds a new body in HYDRA's laboratory. He recruits the Maximoff twins, who have a vendetta against Stark because a Stark Industries bomb killed their parents. After Ultron kills Strucker, he and the twins travel to South Africa to acquire vibranium from arms dealer Ulysses Klaue. The Avengers try to stop them, but Wanda hypnotizes Thor, Black Widow and Captain America, giving them vivid hallucinations. She then hypnotizes Banner, turning him into the Hulk and sending him to attack a nearby city. Iron Man dons the powerful "Veronica" armor and defeats the Hulk, but the destruction they cause starts a public backlash against the Avengers, who are forced to go into hiding. The team takes refuge at Clint Barton's Homestead, where they meet his wife Laura and children Cooper and Lila. Thor leaves, travelling to the mystical "Water of Sights" to determine the meaning of his hallucination. Romanoff and Banner plan to run away and start a new life together when Ultron is defeated. Nick Fury arrives at the homestead and encourages the Avengers to form a plan to stop Ultron. Banner deduces that Ultron is planning to create another body made of synthetic tissue, using the "Cradle" device developed by Dr. Helen Cho. Ultron, Pietro and Wanda go to Cho's laboratory in Seoul, South Korea, and take control of her mind with the scepter. As Ultron transfers his consciousness into the synthetic body and Cho implants the scepter's gem into its forehead, Wanda looks into Ultron's mind and discovers his plan to destroy humanity. The twins turn against Ultron, who leaves the laboratory with the Cradle. Arriving in Seoul, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye battle Ultron, and the twins aid them in rescuing passengers from a derailed train. Ultron captures Black Widow, while Hawkeye retrieves the Cradle and takes it back to Avengers Tower. Stark and Banner upload J.A.R.V.I.S. – which survived Ultron's earlier attack – into the synthetic body. Believing Stark is about to create another Ultron, Captain America and the twins try to stop them, but Thor arrives and brings the body to life with lightning. He explains that the scepter's gem is the Mind Stone – one of the six Infinity Stones, the most powerful objects in existence – which Thor saw in his hallucination, and its power could be advantageous against Ultron. The twins and the synthetic body, who is later given the name "Vision", ally themselves with the Avengers, who return to Sokovia to defeat Ultron's robot army. Ultron has built a machine to lift a large part of Novi Grad, the Sokovian capital, into the sky and crash it into the ground to replicate a meteor strike, causing a mass extinction event. While Banner rescues Romanoff, the Avengers evacuate civilians from the city and fight Ultron, but they are unable to evacuate everyone before the city begins to ascend. Fury and the revived S.H.I.E.L.D., joined by War Machine, arrive in a Helicarrier to assist in evacuating the last few civilians. Ultron commandeers the Avengers' Quinjet and kills Pietro. The grieving Wanda destroys Ultron's primary body and many of his drones for revenge. As the landmass plummets, Iron Man and Thor overload Ultron's machine and shatter the city into rubble, which falls safely into a lake. The Hulk, seeking peace after the battle, gets Romanoff to safety and departs in an auto-piloted Quinjet. Vision confronts and destroys Ultron's last remaining body. The Avengers establish a new base in upstate New York, run by Fury, Cho, Maria Hill and Erik Selvig. Romanoff assumes Banner is dead because the Quinjet cannot be tracked, and silently mourns for him, but Fury assures her that he is likely still alive. Believing the Mind Stone is safe with Vision, Thor returns to Asgard to learn more about the Infinity Stones, while Barton and Stark also leave the team. Captain America and Black Widow assemble a new Avengers team, consisting of Wanda, Falcon, War Machine and Vision. In a post-credits scene, Thanos retrieves an Infinity Gauntlet saying "Fine, I'll do it myself" and then begins his hunt for the Infinity Stones.

Cast

 * Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
 * Chris Hemsworth as Thor
 * Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
 * Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
 * Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
 * Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine
 * Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver
 * Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch
 * Paul Bettany as Vision/J.A.R.V.I.S.
 * Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
 * Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
 * Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
 * Idris Elba as Heimdall
 * Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton
 * Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig
 * Claudia Kim as Helen Cho
 * Thomas Kretschmann as Wolfgang von Strucker
 * James Spader as Ultron
 * Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
 * Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue
 * Julie Delpy as Madame B.
 * Stan Lee as World War II Veteran
 * Henry Goodman as Doctor List
 * Dominique Provost-Chalkley as Zrinka
 * Isaac Andrews as Costel
 * Ben Sakamoto as Cooper Barton
 * Imogen Poynton & Isabella Poynton as Lila Barton
 * Aaron Himelstein as Cameron Klein
 * Kerry Condon as Friday
 * Jaiden Stafford as Nathaniel Barton
 * Josh Brolin as Thanos (uncredited)

Locations

 * New York City, New York
 * Avengers Tower
 * London, England
 * Rivoli Ballroom (illusion)
 * Salvage Yard
 * Johannesburg, South Africa
 * Oslo, Norway
 * Sokovia
 * HYDRA Research Base
 * Novi Grad
 * Seoul, South Korea
 * U-GIN
 * U-GIN Genetic Research Facility
 * Clint Barton's Homestead
 * New Avengers Facility
 * Asgard (illusion)
 * Wakanda (mentioned)
 * Hel (mentioned)
 * Fiji (mentioned)
 * Fiji (mentioned)

Events

 * War on HYDRA
 * Attack on the HYDRA Research Base
 * War against Ultron
 * Attack on Avengers Tower
 * Assassination of Wolfgang von Strucker
 * Battle at the Salvage Yard
 * Duel of Johannesburg
 * Battle of Seoul
 * Battle of Sokovia
 * War for Earth (mentioned)
 * Battle of New York (mentioned)
 * Aldrich Killian's War (mentioned)
 * Destruction of Tony Stark's Mansion (mentioned)
 * Second Dark Elf Conflict (mentioned)
 * Convergence (mentioned)
 * HYDRA Uprising  (mentioned)
 * Battle at the Triskelion  (mentioned)

Items

 * Infinity Gauntlet
 * Infinity Stones
 * Scepter
 * Tesseract (illusion)
 * Aether (illusion)
 * Orb (illusion)
 * Captain America's Shield
 * Vibranium
 * Captain America's Uniform
 * Mjølnir
 * Hawkeye's Quiver and Bow
 * Black Widow's Bite
 * Black Widow's Batons
 * Veronica
 * Iron Man Armor: Mark XLIII
 * Iron Man Armor: Mark XLIV
 * Iron Man Armor: Mark XLV
 * War Machine Armor: Mark II
 * Arc Reactor
 * Ultron Sentries
 * Chitauri Armor
 * Jocasta
 * T.A.D.A.S.H.I.
 * Cradle
 * EXO-7 Falcon
 * Wormhole (mentioned)

Vehicles

 * Captain America's Motorcycle
 * Black Widow's Motorcycle
 * Quinjet
 * HYDRA Tank
 * Helicarrier
 * Transporter

Sentient Species

 * Asgardians
 * Humans
 * Chitauri (mentioned)

Creatures

 * Leviathan

Organizations

 * Avengers
 * HYDRA
 * S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * NATO (mentioned)

Mentioned

 * Red Room
 * Jane Foster
 * Loki
 * Odin
 * Pepper Potts
 * Winter Soldier
 * Howard Stark
 * T'Chaka
 * Peggy Carter (illusion)
 * Heimdall (illusion)
 * Abraham Erskine (indirectly mentioned)
 * Phil Coulson (indirectly mentioned)

Production

 * Despite the subtitle, the film is not based on the 2013 comic book miniseries Age of Ultron. Feige explained, "We came up with a few titles, but every month a new comic book appeared, and that's a great title. Age of Ultron is a great title. We had a few other 'Of Ultrons', but that was the best one. So we're borrowing that title, but taking storylines from decades of Avengers storylines."Also Wheddon added:"We're doing our own version of the origin story of Ultron....We were crafting our own version of it where [Ultron's] own origin comes more directly from the Avengers we already know about. The other thing is in the origin story there was Hank Pym, so a lot of people assumed he was going to be in the mix, but he's not. We're basically taking the things from the comics for the movies that we need and can use. A lot of stuff has to fall by the wayside."
 * In December 2012, Whedon stated that he had completed an outline for the film.
 * In February, at the 2013  Whedon said that death would play a theme in the sequel.
 * In March 2013, Whedon said that he looked to ' and ' as inspirations.
 * On January 24, 2014, the Forte di Bard Association announced that filming would take place at Fort Bard in the Aosta Valley region of Italy in March 2014, as well as other locations in Aosta Valley including Aosta, Donnas, Bard, Pont-Saint-Martin and Verrès. The next month, the Gauteng Film Commission announced that action sequences would be filmed in Johannesburg, South Africa and other locations in Gauteng, beginning in mid-February. A few weeks later Marvel announced that portions of the film would be shot in South Korea. Filming was scheduled to take place in the Gyeonggi Province and its capital, Seoul with South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism reimbursing up to 30% of the studio's expenditures, as part of a state-funded incentive program.
 * Filming finally began on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa, having been postponed for a day. Second unit crews shot the action sequences, without the main cast, in the Central Business District of Johannesburg for a period of two weeks.
 * In March 2014, Brian Tyler signed on to compose the film's score, marking his third film collaboration with Marvel following Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World in 2013. His score includes callbacks to previous Marvel films and pays homage to John Williams' scores for Star Wars, Superman and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
 * Samuel L. Jackson stated that Nick Fury will have a smaller role than he had in the first film.
 * Mark Ruffalo stated that Hulk would have more screen time in this film.
 * After the first official poster was released in February 24, 2015, Hayley Atwell, Anthony Mackie and Idris Elba were officially confirmed to appear in the film as Peggy Carter, Sam Wilson/Falcon and Heimdall respectively.
 * There had been subsequent conversations in social media networks about a scene being shot in Chittagong, Bangladesh and when this discussion became viral at some networks, it was confirmed that a shipyard scene was filmed in Chittagong.

Music

 * Avengers: Age of Ultron (soundtrack)
 * Damato
 * Gregroy Porter
 * Gene Krupa
 * Dickie Jones