Hello to everyone who has been following this blog for many years - I'm still blogging, I'm just moving over to https://www.claireheffer.com/blog - please continue to follow and let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been kind enough to visit over the years. May the lists continue...

Sunday 24 April 2016




FILM 1509: AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON 

TRIVIA: Scarlett Johansson was pregnant during filming of this movie so many of her scenes were scheduled early in filming before she began to show. To help hide her pregnancy later in filming, three stunt doubles were hired. This caused a lot of confusion among the other actors since, according to them, all of the stunt women looked very similar to Johansson. Chris Evans stated that it got to the point where he would say hello and start a conversation with one of them, only to realize midway that the person he was talking to wasn't Johansson. Ultimately, some scenes used CGI to hide Johansson's belly.

Because Ultron was 8-9 feet (2.4 - 2.7 meters) tall, the 5-foot 10-inch (1.77 meter) James Spader had to wear an antennae-like contraption made out of a thick piece of wire with two red balls attached to the top that went up his entire back and 3 feet above his head. This was done so that the actors that shared scenes with him would have a reference point for where his eyes would be; the two red balls represented the placement of Ultron's eyes. Elizabeth Olsen stated that this was actually distracting because Spader would be giving an intense performance and out of instinct she would look at him rather than the balls representing his eyes. Much to everyone's amusement, whenever this happened, Aaron Taylor-Johnson would yell, "Red balls! Look at his balls, Lizzie!" at her in order to get her to look in the right direction.

James Spader was Joss Whedon's first and only choice for the role of Ultron, because of his "hypnotic voice that can be eerily calm and compelling while also being very human and humorous".

Aaron Taylor-Johnson was asked to lose weight (muscle mass in particular) because he looked too strong to portray a runner, who is usually trim.

The trailer was viewed 34 million times on YouTube in the first 24 hours after it was released. This broke the record that was previously held by Iron Man 3 (2013).

The addition of Quicksilver to the cast sparked wide discussion over the direction of the character who is also slated to appear in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Quicksilver had been discussed previously as a potential character in both X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and The Avengers (2012), but legal complexities over the license to the character resulted in his omission from both films. However, in May 2013 both Marvel and Fox Studios announced a resolution to the previous legal issues, and that Quicksilver would appear in this film as well as an X-Men sequel, though under certain parameters: no allusion to his relations to the X-Men or Magneto (the character's father) can be made in an "Avengers" film, and no reference to Quicksilver's membership in the Avengers can be made in an "X-Men" film; the rights agreement between Fox and Marvel even goes so far as to stipulate the character cannot be referred to as a "mutant" in any Marvel film. Additionally, the day after Fox announced Evan Peters as Quicksilver, Marvel and Fox entered into a legal standoff over provisions of the rights agreement for the character, including the issue of whether Peters would be allowed to portray Quicksilver in any other film outside the "X-Men" franchise, necessitating a second actor to play Quicksilver in any Marvel film, resulting in two different versions of the same character appearing in two competing film series.

"Marvel Ultimates" comic is famous for featuring a controversial incestuous story-line between Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. According to Elizabeth Olsen, while this particular aspect would not be overtly present in the film, she and Aaron Taylor-Johnson "played around" with certain parts of it: "Every time you see an image of them, they're always holding each other's hand and looking over each other's shoulder. They're always so close, it's almost uncomfortable. Aaron and I have been playing a little bit with those kinds of images just for ourselves."

Cameo [Stan Lee]: A veteran at the Avengers' party, who takes a drink of Thor's ale. Lee has said this is his favorite cameo to date.

Lou Ferrigno contributed to the voice of the Hulk in this film. He has played the Hulk in almost every live-action version since 1978: he played the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (1978) and its subsequent three TV specials, and he voiced the Hulk in the big-screen The Incredible Hulk (2008) in which he also played "security guard" - he also played a security guard in Hulk (2003). He also has voiced the Hulk in various animated productions.

Paul Bettany (the Vision) is good friends with co-star Stellan Skarsgård (Dr Selvig). In fact, Bettany and his wife Jennifer Connelly named their firstborn child Stellan, after Skarsgård.

When Tony Stark tries to lift Thor's Hammer he jokes saying "I'm re-instituting prima noctis". Primae Noctis was, allegedly, a law in Late Medieval Europe by which a feudal lord could claim the "first night" (implying the night subsequent to her wedding) with any bride in his dominion, in order to have sexual relations with her. This practice was depicted in Braveheart (1995).




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