James Spader Will Return as Ultron in the Vision Series
AI never dies. The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned that James Spader will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Ultron, the villainous artificial intelligence who last menaced Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Spader’s Ultron will return in the Vision series being developed for Disney+ by showrunner Terry Matalas, who is responsible for season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, the one Star Trek fans actually seemed to like. Paul Bettany will once again play Vision. THR also says that the Vision show is not officially titled Vision Quest, as was previously assumed, and that it is intended to be “the third part of a trilogy,” with WandaVision and Agatha All Along being the first two. The show is supposed to arrive on Disney+ in 2026, so Matalas has some time to put this together, which is a good thing.
With the caveat that nothing from Marvel can be trusted to be good right now, I’m glad to hear this. I know most people don’t like Age of Ultron, but I do quite a bit. It’s got problems, and it’s not a top fiver or anything, but there’s a lot of great stuff in that movie, not the least of which is Vision and his moral contrast with Ultron. Ultron himself is one of the problems with the movie – certain aspects of him, anyway – and I think bringing him back would be a good way to rectify some of that. The biggest issue with Ultron is that the film never took advantage of him being artificial intelligence. His evil plan to destroy all life on Earth with a makeshift meteor is something any supervillain could have done, while things that would have been specifically related to Ultron were only pontificated on. Why not actually show him try to launch every nuclear missile in the world instead of simply imagining he could do it? Or have him topple governments by infiltrating their computer systems. How It Should’ve Ended made a video where Ultron crashes every quinjet the Avengers try to board to stop him, which is meant as a joke but would have been great in the movie. Instead, it’s rising cities and magic scepters and Infinity Gems.
But having him back and facing Vision on a lower-key TV show could be just what Ultron needs. You now have two beings created with AI in a personal showdown (presumably) instead of a big Avengers movie that requires a massive battle. This is where Ultron’s strengths in the film can work in his favor, particularly his philosophical musings, which were fascinating. Ultron wasn’t much of a physical threat, unfortunately, but he initiated some good discussions about morality, religion, and man’s place in the world. And now, Vision is essentially reborn and trying to find his way, to figure out who he is; having Ultron influence that could be fun, especially if he’s the devil on his shoulder trying to convince Vision to break with his old superhero ways and use his power for himself. THR wonders how he’ll come back since Age of Ultron ended with Vision killing the last Ultron drone, which was supposed to destroy him for good. But it shouldn’t be too hard to get around that; maybe Ultron put himself into a hard drive somewhere as a backup in case his bodies were all destroyed, or something like that. Or, since Vision is on a quest for self-discovery, perhaps he resurrects his maker to learn more about himself, giving Ultron the chance to make Vision what he originally wanted him to be before the Avengers got ahold of him. This series has a ton of potential, and Ultron only adds to it.
Part of why is that he’s being played by an actor as fantastic as James Spader. He gave Ultron a lot more personality than I imagined he’d have, bringing out the humanity in a robot determined to destroy it. Joss Whedon, the writer-director of Age of Ultron, described him as an angry teenager, and I see a lot of that in Spader’s performance. He’s angry with his “dad,” Tony Stark, and questions everything around him, coming to the conclusion that it’s evil while determining to cause human extinction as a solution. It’s very much a high school kid who watched a Michael Moore documentary and thinks he has all the answers. But Ultron is a bit smarter than that, and he at least asks good questions about the world, even if he comes up with the wrong answers, which is what made his final scene with Vision so fascinating. They agree that mankind is doomed, but one seeks to save it anyway, or at least to try, while the other wants to hasten its removal from the Earth. I’d love to see Spader play a somewhat evolved version of that, one who’s a bit wiser and perhaps more restrained but no less angry or ill-intentioned. And James Spader is just a terrific actor in general, from Sex, Lies, and Videotape to Boston Legal to The Blacklist (which I still have to finish). Look at this scene and tell me he can’t bring it:
What do you think of Ultron returning to the MCU? Let us know in the comments!
