Last week Marvel announced that they would premiere the first trailer for the next Avengers movie during ABC’s Agents of SHIELD. 24 hours later, the trailer was leaked on the internet. In a show of good sportsmanship, Marvel released the trailer early and instead promised some additional footage from Age of Ultron for fans. The reveal of the footage comes after a day jam-packed full of new announcements detailing Marvel’s Phase 3 plans.
In the footage, we open with the Avengers – including Rhodey aka War Machine (Don Cheadle), as well as Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) – shooting the breeze around Tony Stark’s mansion, each taking their turn to try to lift Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Tony and Rhodey are both unsuccessful, though Cap manages to budge it a little. The revelry is interrupted by the reveal of our villain, Ultron, a rogue artificial intelligence inhabiting one of the Iron Man suits. The scene leads directly into clips from the leaked trailer along with a few new ones, the jokes and beers giving way to ruined cityscapes, Avengers fighting one-another, and Ultron leading an army of robots against their masters. While the leak appears to have stolen the thunder of what would have been Marvel’s grand finale to a big news day, it’s nice to see the Avengers will still find room for the lighthearted fun found in even the darkest moments of prior MCU films. One bit of trivia: in the comics, Captain America is eventually able to carry Mjolnir – the only one besides Thor who can. Perhaps, with his shield shattered, we’ll see him pick it up later? We’ll find out when Avengers: Age of Ultron reaches theaters on May 1st, 2015.