As more and more promotional material emerges for ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’ True Believers are learning more and more about the Marvel Cinematic Universe versions of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Recently, we saw some fun facts reveal a little bit about what to expect from Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, but Joss Whedon took it a step further in a new featurette by explaining the twins’ mysterious powers even further. Now, the director behind 2012’s super hit ‘The Avengers’ has a little bit more to say about two of the newest characters joining Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
While speaking to Buzzfeed during their visit to the set of ‘Age of Ultron’, Whedon unveiled more background information about the Maximoffs. As far as we know, they’ll be joining the ranks with Captain America, Thor, and the rest of the gang in the fight against Ultron, but apparently that won’t be the case from the start since they have a grudge against the team, specifically Iron Man:
“They don’t like America, and they don’t like the Avengers. We only touch on it briefly — there was more. When the movie was an hour longer, everything got explained a lot. The Avengers are like a world power, and not everybody’s on board with the Avengers coming in and starting fights, even in the name of justice. So you need that dissenting voice, and you need to understand it and sympathize with it.”
From there, the fan favorite filmmaker went on to talk specifically about Scarlet Witch’s powers, which have been altered from the source material. Previously, rumors circulated about dream sequences induced by Wanda that will plague the Avengers with their worse fears in a sort of Jean Grey meets Batman villain Scarecrow sort of way. In the interview, Whedon explains the Witch’s powers and the purpose of these scenes (which will feature cameos from Idris Elba’s Heimdall and Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter):
“She can make you have a nightmare, is one way of putting it. ‘Trip balls,’ would be another one. That was something I very much wanted, because it meant we could spend a little time inside the Avengers’ heads — either their past or their impressions of what’s going on, or their fears, or all of the above. And confronting that is very debilitating for the Avengers, but it’s also kind of revelatory. That’s not the movie I made last time. I could never have done that.”
But even with the changes to Scarlet Witch’s abilities in the MCU, Whedon does drop some verbiage that might indicate some sort of magic is still involved despite the “grounded” nature of the Marvel Studios films:
“The Marvel Universe is very grounded in reality. We have Guardians [of the Galaxy]. We have Thor. But at the end of the day, you know, a blaster, a hammer, it’s all grounded. This is a girl who tosses spells around. You want that physicality to be very believable. You want to feel the directionality and the specificity. Sometimes I’m just straight-up pedantic about, ‘This is what she’s trying to accomplish, so let’s create a motion that is exactly that.’”
The piece makes it pretty clear throughout that these versions of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch and their origins are fairly engrained in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unlike the comics, the twins are orphaned at 10 years old when their parents are killed in a bomb attack. Whedon also mentions that because of this, they volunteer to be subjected to the experiments of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker that involve Loki’s scepter from ‘The Avengers’, which we first saw in the post-credits scene of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’. So even though many may be side eying these characters’ portrayals in the MCU, I’ll remain cautiously optimistic and refrain from full judgment until the film comes out.
What do you think about Joss Whedon’s comments about Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’? Are you excited to see how they turn out when they make their debuts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Or are you worried about how much they could possibly be changed from their comic book counterparts? Sound off in the comments below.
‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ starring Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlet Johannson, Jeremy Renner, Robert Downey Jr., Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Paul Bettany, and James Spader assembles in theaters on May 1, 2015.
