Filming of ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron‘ is roughly at the half-way mark, but details are rumored to have emerged regarding part of the story, specifically the first 15-20 minutes of the movie.

SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to know about these story details, don’t read any further!

These “leaked” story details from Latino Review indicate that we will get our first glimpse of Avengers Tower, formerly Stark Tower in New York which was, of course, practically destroyed in ‘The Avengers’.  The tower has apparently been renovated and now includes living quarters for the heroes, which we will get to witness in the new film.  Also expect to see the hanger bay where the newly redesigned Quinjet will be housed.

The movie is expected to clock in at over two hours, due to the dense amount of action director Joss Whedon hopes to pack into it.  Also it should be noted, that this leaked information may be slightly out of date, because Scarlett Johansson’s pregnancy has forced some rewrites.  (The same occurred with Halle Berry in ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’.)

‘Age of Ultron’ picks up immediately after the post-credit scene from ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ which showed Baron Von Strucker in possession of Loki’s staff and “the twins” Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.  In the new movie, we will also discover he has Chitauri weaponry and the corpse of a Leviathan.  The Avengers crash his lab and Strucker sics the twins on them.

The Scarlet Witch hexes the Hulk, making him think the Leviathan is still alive and he attacks his allies.

Ultimately, the heroes win and recover the staff and other weaponry.  There’s no further mention of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, so their roles may not be a large as earlier expected.  (Or they could come back into play later in the story.)

The Avengers retire to Avengers Tower for a celebration.  A “party game” they play is trying to lift Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.  When Iron Man tries, his armor pops off.  Captain America manages to budge it, but can’t fully lift it.  (In the comics, Cap and Superman are the only other beings capable of lifting the magical mallet due to their purity, for lack of a better word.)

James “Rhody” Rhodes/Iron Patriot makes an appearance at the party.

We learn that Bruce Banner and Black Widow have developed a crush on one another, but Banner is afraid to consummate the relationship for fear of “hulking out” during the act and harming her.  The relationship is described as being very “Buffy/Angel.”

In other relationship news, we learn that Natalie Portman’s character Jane Foster from the ‘Thor’ movies has left him for Richard, the character played very briefly in ‘Thor: The Dark World’ by Chris O’Dowd.  (Portman has been reported to be unhappy with appearing in the Marvel movies, which is why she only appeared as a holographic image in ‘Avengers’ and she was supposedly angling to get out of being in ‘The Dark World’.  Presumably, she is simply being written out of the Marvel cinematic universe.)  This could set Thor up to eventually partner with Sif, something that has been hinted at in previous films.

So it sounds like the film opens with a big battle, kicking things off with a bang, followed by some character development to catch us up on where these characters are personally since their last movie appearances.  This is all set up before the major threat, Ultron makes his debut.

What do you think?  Is this a great way to kick off the sequel to the third highest-grossing movie of all time?  Or would you rather see something different?