Joss Whedon And Marvel Studios Announce 'Avengers: Age Of Ultron' As Sequel To 'The Avengers'

Joss Whedon took the stage at Hall H today to intro a brief teaser clip for a new film. The footage featured animated close-ups of metal being pounded into shape as we hear clips of dialogue from The Avengers. But as the metal object revolves and the camera pulls back the head of Ultron is revealed.

Smash cut to title: The Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

We'd thought that Thanos would be the enemy in the Avengers sequel, but a brief mention at the Guardians of the Galaxy panel suggests we might see Thanos in that movie. (At that panel Djimon Housou mentioned that his character Korath is a close associate of Thanos, which based on director James Gunn's reaction seemed like something we weren't supposed to know — or that they're playing as if we shouldn't know.) Thanos could always be the eventual Biggest Bad in a third Avengers movie.

Age of Ultron was originally a 10-issue limited series comic book crossover storyline, published earlier this year, that involved the return of Ultron and his conquest of the earth. The publication date is interesting, because Marvel has generally been mining well-established storylines. The fact that the Avengers sequel is based on a new series suggests that Marvel is doing more to design hand-in-hand events that go quickly from page to screen.

The question then is: how close to the printed Age of Ultron text will the movie run? We have no idea at this point.

But this also connects other known Marvel projects and some rumors. The aggressive artificial intelligence Ultron, encased in an adamantium shell, was designed by Henry Pym, aka Ant-Man, which ties to the Marvel movie set to be directed by Edgar Wright. So is Ant-Man introduced in the Avengers sequel, which is set for release months before Wright's movie? (There's also the fact that there are multiple versions of Ant-Man, and we don't know precisely how they'll be used, combined, or ignored in the Cinematic Universe.)

Or will things be changed more? Furthermore, Ultron is the creator of the Vision, which is one of the characters rumored for a new Avengers film, with some fans pegging hopes on Vin Diesel to be cast in the part.