Marvel Update: Friday Aug 30th 2013

As we now know, James Spader has been cast to play the mechanical villain Ultron in the next Avengers movie, according to a Thursday announcement from Marvel. If you're not a huge Avengers follower, that may leave you wondering who Ultron is and then who the smiling purple guy at the end of the first Avengers movie was. Wired.com has a nice little synopsis as to who Ultron is, and as for Thanos, who was featured in the credits of The Avengers, he may not be the villain of the next Avengers movie (although he's supposed to be in Avengers 3), but he's still going to play a role in the Phase 2 Marvel films. Kevin Fiege, godfather and supervising emperor of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, said in an interview with Empire that Thanos will be involved in Guardians of the Galaxy:

"We’ve already said that Thanos plays a part in it and is a character in it. That in and of itself should tell you [Guardians] is connected to the other worlds. Ronan The Accuser (Lee Pace) is very much the main bad guy. And Thanos is lurking above it all. You will learn more about Thanos in Guardians, for sure. Certainly you’ll get more than the one turn-around-and-smirk. You’ll get much more than that."

In a recent interview with EW, Joss Whedon talked about how Ultron and Thanos will fit into the second Avengers film:

“I knew right away what I wanted to do with him. He’s always trying to destroy the Avengers, goddamn it. He’s got a bee in his bonnet. He’s not a happy guy, which means he’s an interesting guy. He’s got pain. And the way that manifests is not going to be standard robot stuff. So we’ll take away some of those powers because, at some point, everybody becomes magic, and I already have someone who’s a witch. As a character I love [Ultron], because he’s so pissed off.”

“We have to stay grounded. It’s part of what makes the Marvel universe click – their relationship to the real world. It’s science-fiction, and Thanos is not out of the mix, but Thanos was never meant to be the next villain. He’s always been the overlord of villainy & darkness.”

Lastly, in an interview with Huffington Post, Captain America: The Winter Soldier co-director Joe Russo discussed how his film will connect the series over to Avengers 2:

"There's a very strong connection in the narrative between the events of the end of "Avengers" that drive this film -- and there's a very strong hand off to "Avengers 2" at the end of this movie. And Kevin Feige's whole thing is that this is the biggest bridge of all of Phase 2 movies; it really is. It does involve the most amount of Avengers of any of the films in Phase 2, and it has sort of a, you know, there's a very big shift in the universe at the end of this movie."

So all that's exciting. Ultron will come to pay a visit, then Thanos after he does something to the Guardians of the Galexy, and Captian America will help with the set-up. For an actual peek at the next thing from Marvel, here's a new TV spot for Thor: Dark of the World: