EXCLUSIVE: JARVIS Is Ultron; Paul Bettany Could Return

(Potential The Avengers: Age of Ultron spoilers below.  Ya’ll been warned)

Last week these animated storyboards from The Avengers leaked onto the internet, showcasing the origins of a few popular scenes, and displaying a few alternatives. This was among them:

JARVIS seemed a bit too comfortable as a villain, didn’t he? I know Loki was manipulating our favorite virtual butler, but perhaps that was a hint at the future. Considering Joss Whedon’s recent admission that Hank Pym won’t be featured in The Avengers: Age of Ultron as the creator of Ultron, and the subsequent leaked synopsis that claimed Tony Stark would be the villain’s sire… could JARVIS become that main baddie?

Well, that’s what we’ve theorized (and we’ve said as much in articles past), but we couldn’t get anyone involved in the project to confirm it… not until our usually tight lipped friend at Disney decided to chime in.

When we asked if JARVIS, or a form of the AI software, would become Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, our source said:

That’s the plan so far from what I’ve heard. Obvious, isn’t it?

And since Paul Bettany has portrayed JARVIS in every Marvel Studios film since the cinematic universe’s creation, we asked our source if the thespian would return for a proper physical role, instead of just the voiceover:

He’s returning, but I’m not sure if they’re doing motion capture with him, or if they’ll use someone else. Since he’s only done voiceovers, the contract is new.

What exactly does that mean? We tried to get a few more specific questions answered by our source, but he didn’t feel comfortable responding to much more than those obvious two.

Still, these answers open the door to  a horde of possibilities. If Tony Stark is the surrogate father, will he inherit the Oedipal conflict that was so prevalent between Ultron and Hank Pym in the original comic books? In the source material, the murderous robot wants to blow his creator (Pym) to itty bitty pieces and abscond with his wife, The Wasp. Could we see a narrative equivalent with Tony and Pepper Potts? Will JARVIS Ultron try to kill Tony and marry Pepper?

Since we know that Whedon and Marvel Studios are comfortable with liberally adapting the source material, as this breaking news reveals, what other changes will we see? Will Ultron be more than a simple robot? If Paul Bettany is, in fact, portraying the villain on the big screen, then I imagine Marvel would want to make good use of his handsome, marketable face. Could Ultron utilize a human visage… a ‘Vision’ for his public persona?

That may sound a bit far fetched, but considering Scarlet Witch’s involvement with the flick, and her comic book romance with The Vision (who is an android created by Ultron), it seems only natural that Marvel would use Paul Bettany for that role. After all, they’ve allowed Tony Stark to create Ultron for the sake of streamlining the narrative, which a Bettany Vision would accomplish. He can portray the main adamantium armored baddey through motion capture, and The Vision through with his normal pink fleshy self.