14 DAY TRIAL // Footage from next year’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the second installment in the “Avengers” franchise from director Joss Whedon, finally screened over the weekend at San Diego Comic-Con 2014. After the screening, fans and media representatives gathered in Hall H gave it a standing ovation – and descriptions of the trailer available online say it was well deserved.
Marvel won’t be releasing the footage to the general public anytime soon so, until it does, all we have to go by is the word of all those who saw it. They stress that “Age of Ultron” will be even more violent and darker than the first installment, with even higher stakes for the Avengers team than ever before.
In fact, Slash Film notes, the stakes are so high that this team of superheroes might even lose the battle against the sentient robot Ultron and his army of robot replicas. Or, at least, that’s what Marvel would have us believe.
The footage opens with a shot of the Avengers (Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, Thor, Hawkeye, and Captain America) hanging out and drinking beer, while joking about Thor’s hammer and how it’s nothing but a “circus side show.”
In turn, all these superheroes, except Black Widow, try to lift it, but only the Captain comes close to moving it a bit. Thor concludes that they’re not worthy, which is why they couldn’t lift his hammer.
This is when Ultron (voiced by James Spader) makes his first appearance: “How could you be worthy? You are all killers. You want to protect the world but you don’t want it to change. There’s only one path to peace… your extinction.”
He and his army of robots proceed to doing just that, before the screen fades to black and the Marvel logo. Action scenes play next in rapid succession, showing the Avengers, now joined by Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, trying to defend the earth from the army of robots, and at the same time, to evacuate as many people as possible from the path of destruction.
There is an ominous feeling that they’re fighting a losing battle. The final shot drives that message home: “we see Cap’s shield broken, Tony Stark looking down at it, the camera pulls back and we literally see every member of the team laying on the ground in tatters on what may or not be Thanos’ tomb. They look dead,” Slash Film writes.
“Wow. The footage is simply breathtaking. This is a wholly different, much bigger Avengers movie than we’re used to seeing,” adds the same media outlet.
It’s unlikely that Marvel will be killing off all their Avengers but Tony Stark in the second installment: this franchise is simply too huge to just go away like that. While it’s clear that this is some alternate future or a vision of what might happen if they don’t defeat Ultron, the journey from start to finish is built in such a convincing manner that, if only for a second, their death seems probable.
“Avengers: Age of Ultron” will be out in May next year, and stars franchise regulars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, but also newcomers Aaron Tayor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and Andy Serkis.