WandaVision is by far the most intriguing show on the upcoming Disney Plus slate. It explores Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff’s reality-warping powers, apparently showing her creating an idealized 1950s reality in which she has a family with Paul Bettany’s Vision, who died in the finale of Avengers: Infinity War. Bettany has called the series “super avant-garde and weird,” with Kevin Feige saying it’ll see Wanda becoming the Scarlet Witch in the MCU.
Since production began, we’ve heard all sorts of interesting rumors from the set. One is that the show will see the first IP from the X-Men franchise hit the MCU, while another is that we’ll see Wanda and Vision’s children and yet more surprisingly, there’s convincing evidence that Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver will return to the MCU five years after his death in Age of Ultron.
But now, sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us Wiccan will debut in the show and that a Ms. Marvel TV series is coming to Disney Plus, both of which have since been confirmed – say that another prominent figure not seen in the MCU since the aforementioned film will also return: Ultron himself. Yes, apparently James Spader has been spotted on set and will be playing “a different version” of the villain. Given that so much of Wanda, Vision and Pietro’s backstory is tied up with Ultron, this makes a decent amount of sense and if we’re seeing a world created by Wanda, then Ultron would certainly loom large in it.
Now, you might wonder why the CGI Ultron character would need Spader present in the first place. Well, in Age of Ultron, his performance was fully motion-captured on set (as you can see in this video), so it stands to reason that they’d go down the same route on WandaVision. That being said, we’ve also been told that in this reality that Wanda’s made for herself, we get to see the villain in human form. Exactly how that happens, we don’t know, but our sources – who also told us Taskmaster would be the main antagonist in Black Widow – say that Spader will appear in the flesh at some point.
Details beyond that remain hazy, but it’s certainly good to hear that Ultron will be back in at least some form. After all, while Avengers: Age of Ultron is generally considered a bottom tier MCU movie, most agree that Spader’s Ultron is one of the best things about it. As such, I’d love to see him return, and with WandaVision scheduled to debut later this year, hopefully we’ll get more details on what role he’ll play in the show sooner rather than later.
