Star Trek: Picard‘s Terry Matalas is ramping up work on his next series, the as-yet-untitled Disney+ show centering on Marvel’s Vision. With Paul Bettany back as the emotionally evolved title android, another artificial intelligence is now confirmed as part of the cast: Ultron, the antagonist of 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, once again played by James Spader.
This news comes from the Hollywood Reporter. It’s the first big update we’ve had on the Vision series since Matalas’ involvement was confirmed back in May. Spader’s casting as the character he voiced in Age of Ultron makes a certain amount of sense even without knowing what plot Matalas and company will be tackling. As Marvel fans will recall, Ultron was created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner with a little help from Loki’s scepter—a scheme that quickly went awry when Ultron, ostensibly a planetary defense program, became self-aware, crafted himself a body, built up an army, and basically turned into the sort of bad guy requiring a bunch of Avengers to take down. He also offered up a supremely creepy version of an classic Disney tune: declaration-of-freedom anthem “I’ve Got No Strings” from Pinocchio.
Along the way, of course, Vision was also created—using Stark’s JARVIS AI, a synthezoid body, the Mind Stone, and some of Thor’s mojo. Ultron was apparently squashed at the end of Age of Ultron, and the Vision was not himself when we last saw him at the end of WandaVision, so the circumstances that’ll bring these two back together should be intriguing to behold. Will they be enemies? Frenemies? A robotic superteam? Two ghosts in the machine wreaking chaos together?
We may be waiting awhile to find out. As THR notes, “the series is meant to be the third part of a trilogy that started with Wandavision and continues in Agatha All Along, which debuts in September on Disney+. The new show is eying a shoot in England in early 2025.” So far there’s no word on any other casting or creative involvement; whether or not Elisabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff—a key figure in Vision’s life, but not doing so well in the MCU after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness—will return has not yet been addressed.
In keeping with Marvel’s new plan to release fewer films and series annually than it has in recent years, the Vision series is expected to arrive on Disney+ in 2026. Does Spader’s involvement make you even more excited for it?
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