Editorial Staff
There’s a couple of “Avengers : Age of Ultron” stories doing the rounds today.
One’s a bit of a waste-of-space story regarding Hawkeye not dying in the film.
The other is in regards to the ‘team’ we’ll see in the movie – and how the “Avengers” at the end of the film won’t be the same group that kicks off the film (or headlined the original “Avengers” movie). Much like the comics, they’ll be changing the line-up – and adding a new character here and there.
Bad Ass Digest has word on the line-up as well as the possible inclusion of a major new character.
At the end of Age of Ultron Cap will assemble a team that is a mix of familiar and new faces, leading forward into Phase Three. It’s an exciting mission statement for Marvel Studios, letting audiences know that the Avengers team is more than just the guys who were in the first film. The make-up of that team is, technically, up in the air until that scene is shot (I suspect it’s being saved for either scheduled reshoots or will be snuck into the schedule of Captain America 3, which goes before cameras early next year), but Joss Whedon’s script did indicate who would be on that team. I won’t reveal all the names – and some have changed in between drafts, by the way – but one character who has always been in this new team is Captain Marvel.
Now, this is an end of the movie cameo. This isn’t a big part of the movie. This new version of The Avengers isn’t involved in an action sequence or anything. So changing the characters can be done up until the last minute without hurting the story itself. What this bit accomplishes is basically pointing the way to Phase Three, saying “These characters will be important.”
That’s why Captain Marvel (called Ms. Marvel in the scripts I know about) is important. This cameo establishes her as a player in Phase Three, possibly with a movie of her own. Likely with a movie of her own.
But now I’m hearing that Marvel has cold feet about including her in the film. Not because they’re against the character – my sources assure me she is coming and it’s very plausible she could be on the team in Avengers 3 – but because they’re not certain they want to introduce her in this way. They basically aren’t certain they want to just drop her into the MCU fully formed in a team movie.
Oh, and Hawkeye doesn’t die.
