50 Fun Facts About Avengers: Age of Ultron

Who wrote and directed Avengers: Age of Ultron?

He returned from the first film and also helped develop Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for ABC as part of the same deal.

Age of Ultron was which numbered film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

It closed out Phase Two along with Ant-Man, which arrived two months later.

Who voices and performs Ultron via motion capture?

Whedon called him his first and only choice for the part because of his eerily calm, hypnotic voice.

In which fictional Eastern European country does the film open and close?

Its destruction leads directly to the Sokovia Accords that split the team in Captain America: Civil War.

Which Hydra leader commands the base the Avengers raid at the start of the film?

Thomas Kretschmann plays him; he first appeared in the mid-credits scene of The Winter Soldier.

Where do Stark and Banner find the artificial intelligence they use to complete the Ultron program?

The gem turns out to be the Mind Stone, which later ends up in the android's forehead.

Which arms dealer do Ultron and the twins visit in Johannesburg to obtain vibranium?

Andy Serkis plays him, and Ultron slices off his arm in a fit of temper; he returns in Black Panther.

Where do the Avengers hide after the Hulk's rampage in Johannesburg?

Marvel executives were reportedly not thrilled with the farm scenes, but Whedon fought to keep them.

In which city does Ultron enslave Dr. Helen Cho to build his new body?

South Korea's government reimbursed up to 30% of the production's local spending to bring the shoot there.

Whose consciousness do Stark and Banner upload into the synthetic body, creating Vision?

The AI had been hiding inside the internet after Ultron apparently destroyed it in the first act.

How does Vision earn the Avengers' trust moments after he is created?

Only Thor had managed it in the party scene earlier, though Rogers had made the hammer wobble.

What is Ultron's plan for causing human extinction?

He uses the remaining vibranium to build the lifting machine under the capital city.

Which character dies shielding Hawkeye from gunfire?

Aaron Taylor-Johnson had played the character; a different Quicksilver, Evan Peters, existed at Fox at the same time.

Who plays Dr. Helen Cho, the geneticist whose technology Ultron hijacks?

Her role was kept secret for months; Marvel only confirmed the character's name in December 2014.

Which four heroes make up the new Avengers roster Rogers and Romanoff prepare to train at the end?

Anthony Mackie says he did not know Falcon had been made an Avenger until he watched the premiere.

What does the mid-credits scene show Thanos putting on?

He vows to retrieve the Infinity Stones himself; there is no post-credits scene after it, a first for the MCU at the time.

Why did Whedon skip the customary post-credits sequence?

Feige clarified there would still be a tag partway through the credits, just no post-post-credits scene.

Which actor filmed scenes as Loki that were cut from the film?

Test audiences assumed Loki was secretly controlling Ultron, so his scenes were dropped to fix expectations.

Which heroine flew into Avengers HQ at the end of an early script draft, before being cut?

Whedon shot the effects plates anyway and reused them for Wanda instead.

An early draft had the Hulk's Quinjet detected near which planet at the end of the film?

It was cut to squash rumours of a Planet Hulk movie, a storyline Marvel later used anyway in Thor: Ragnarok.

Which two characters' film rights did Marvel share with Fox, forcing Whedon to avoid the word 'mutant'?

Fox's own Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, had appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past a year earlier.

Whedon named which two films as inspirations for the sequel?

He wanted something smaller, more personal and more painful than the first film, though the production grew anyway.

Which comic-book character, Ultron's creator in the comics, was deliberately kept out of Ultron's movie origin?

Edgar Wright had first claim on the character for Ant-Man, and Whedon felt a third scientist would be one too many.

Is the film based on the 2013 comic miniseries also called Age of Ultron?

Feige said the plot was drawn from decades of Avengers stories rather than that one series.

At which English studio was most of the principal photography shot?

Production designer Charles Wood built an enormous Avengers Tower set there, one of the largest ever for a Marvel film.

What was the film's working title?

Marvel disguises its shoots with throwaway names; the others here belonged to different MCU productions.

Which Italian region doubled as the fictional Eastern European nation, with signs re-lettered in Cyrillic?

Fort Bard and the towns of Aosta, Bard, Donnas and Verrès all appear.

Which English fortress provided the interiors of Strucker's Hydra base?

Other English locations included the University of East Anglia and a Metropolitan Police training facility that played a Sokovian town.

In which country did filming begin on February 11, 2014, with second-unit plates for the Hulk sequence?

Filming began there on February 11, 2014, before the main unit started in England.

Up to what share of the production's spending did South Korea agree to reimburse?

Feige praised the country's cutting-edge technology and architecture; scenes were shot on the Mapo Bridge and in Gangnam.

Which actress's pregnancy was hidden with close-ups, concealing costumes and stunt doubles?

Black Widow's backstory, including her training under Julie Delpy's Madame B., is explored in the same film.

Whedon was inspired by what kind of performers in designing how Wanda Maximoff moves?

Olsen trained mostly with a dancer instead of doing traditional stunt work.

Paul Bettany was cast as Vision after voicing which character in earlier MCU films?

He was surprised to be asked, since MCU actors are almost never cast as a second character.

Whedon compared Ultron to which classic literary creation?

'We create something in our own image and the thing turns on us,' he said of the character's pain.

Which Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World composer replaced Alan Silvestri for the sequel?

Danny Elfman also contributed, weaving Silvestri's original Avengers theme into a new hybrid.

What is Stan Lee's cameo in Age of Ultron?

He insists Thor's Asgardian liquor is no match for him, and is carried out moments later.

Which classic Disney song was used to chilling effect in the first trailer?

The trailer leaked a week early, so Marvel released it officially within hours and it drew 34.3 million views in a day.

What was the film's estimated net production budget, making it one of the most expensive films ever made?

The gross figure was $444 million before UK tax incentives were taken into account.

Roughly how much did Age of Ultron gross worldwide?

It was the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time when it finished its run.

Which two films had bigger domestic opening weekends than Age of Ultron at the time?

Analysts blamed the slightly soft opening on the Mayweather–Pacquiao fight that same weekend.

Which sporting event was blamed for the film's opening weekend coming in below expectations?

The fight was on the Saturday of opening weekend, May 2, 2015.

Which country was the film's largest market outside North America?

It took $240 million there; South Korea, where part of the film was shot, was third.

Roughly 700 independent cinema screens in which country boycotted the film over Disney's rental fees?

Disney had raised its share of ticket sales from 47.7% to 53%.

Which manufacturer supplied its first electric motorcycle, Project LiveWire, for Black Widow to ride?

Audi provided the cars, as it has for every Iron Man appearance.

Which sequence was cut short because test audiences did not respond to a hero being possessed by a Norn?

Stellan Skarsgård said he was not originally meant to be in the film at all until a couple of scenes were written for him.

Which grey-skinned comic Hulk did the effects team avoid evoking under Wanda's influence?

They had considered giving the manipulated Hulk grey skin and red eyes before dropping the idea.

The film's final scene was reshot to include what?

The scene had originally been shot with Falcon in his Winter Soldier suit, but Ant-Man's redesign came out later that summer.

Which Marvel character did Whedon want at the end but couldn't use as the Sony deal wasn't done?

Sony and Marvel reached their sharing deal in February 2015, too late for this film but in time for Civil War.

Which actress plays Laura Barton, Hawkeye's wife, in Age of Ultron?

Her casting was only confirmed in April 2015, weeks before release, to keep the farmhouse reveal a surprise.

Which motion-capture specialist's studio, The Imaginarium, helped Mark Ruffalo prepare to play the Hulk?

Serkis also appears on screen as the arms dealer Ulysses Klaue, later the villain of Black Panther.