Posts Tagged ‘Elizabeth Olsen’

OFFICIAL: Elizabeth Olsen & Aaron Taylor-Johnson Join ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , , on November 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth OlsenI’ve already commented that it was official due to other reputable sources, but now it’s official!official with Marvel itself signing off on the casting.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen have officially joined the Avengers family as the brother-sister duo of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the highly-anticipated sequel to 2012’s smash-hit “Marvel’s The Avengers”! “Avengers: Age of Ultron” arrives in theaters May 1, 2015.

Taylor-Johnson broke out with his roles as Dave Lizewski in the “Kick-Ass” franchise and with his portrayal of a young John Lennon in “Nowhere Boy,” for which he won an Empire Award for Best Newcomer. Since then, Taylor Johnson has starred in 2012’s critically-acclaimed “Anna Karenina” and director Oliver Stone’s “Savages.”

Since making her big screen debut in 2011 with “Silent House” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” for which the actress garnered a number of awards and nominations, Olsen has gone on to star alongside the likes of Robert DeNiro and Sigourney Weaver in “Red Lights,” Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson in director Spike Lee’s “Oldboy.”

Taylor-Johnson and Olsen will share the screen as leads in the highly anticipated “Godzilla” remake scheduled for a May 2014 release.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” will bring the Marvel Universe’s biggest heroes together again to face one of their biggest villains, with “Marvel’s The Avengers” director Joss Whedon returning to write and direct the sequel. “Marvel’s The Avengers” was released in 2012 and went on to earn $1.5 billion worldwide, making it the third-largest grossing movie of all time.

In addition to “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on the Marvel characters including “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” on April 4, 2014; “Guardians of the Galaxy” on August 1, 2014; and “Ant-Man” on July 31, 2015.

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Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver Actors Confirmed (finally)

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , on November 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Elle Style Awards, London, Britain - 11 Feb 2013It was pretty much a sure thing, though still classified as ‘rumor’, but the casting for Scarlet Witch seems to have finally been confirmed by the Witch herself.

Elizabeth Olsen Finally Confirms ‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron’ Role via MTV

“Avengers” director Joss Whedon has been very open about his intentions to include brother-sister duo Scarlet and Quicksilver in his upcoming sequel “Age of Ultron,” but confirming who will play the sibling has been a little more difficult to pin down.

“Kick-Ass” star Aaron Taylor-Johnson was first mentioned as a contender for the role of Quicksilver this summer and was finally confirmed for the part last month (via The Wrap). He was said to be joined by his “Godzilla” co-star Elizabeth Olsen, in a report from Bleeding Cool in August, but an official confirmation was harder to come by for Scarlet Witch.

Samuel L. Jackson’s comments to The Wall Street Journal seemed to have confirmed that Olsen would appear with him in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but now the actress herself has shared her excited about joining the project with MTV News’ Josh Horowitz.

Speaking with MTV News at the junket for “Oldboy,” Olsen joked that Jackson had freed her from refusing to talk about the project by confirming her role. She said that she doesn’t know too much about “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but that she’s excited to work with Taylor-Johnson again.

“We get to play husband and wife, and we get to play twin brother and sister,” she said. “It’s also fun because even though in ‘Godzilla’ we play husband and wife, we don’t have a lot of scenes together. I just love him. I love his family. I love his kids. I’m so excited…to actually work with each other. I think it’s going to be fun.”

Olsen also mentioned her soon-to-be director, Whedon, who she was quick to compliment. “He’s very smart. He’s too smart. He might be too smart,” she said. “Some people are too smart for their own good, but he’s amazing.”

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” opens in theaters on May 1, 2015.

While I’m not against the casting in and of itself… this basically confirms that the Maximoff twins are being stripped of most of their classic characterizations as Romani/Eastern European and being turned into ‘edgy British’. I understand Marvel!Disney had to tread water lightly since they can’t use ‘Magneto’ or ‘mutant’ in the film, but that doesn’t excuse changing the Maximoff’s nationality as it is wholly separate from their mutant status. The twins where Avengers long before they were ever discovered to be Magneto’s children and being mutants is just an excuse for them to have powers. The filmmakers could literally translate the twins onto the big screen with almost no changes from their comic book form just by saying ‘magic/experimental thingy’ instead of ‘mutant’.

There are only three reasons for them to be doing this:

  1. They don’t think the audience would want to see POC characters.
  2. They don’t want to make the effect to do POC characters correctly (or risk backlash from screwing them up).
  3. They are pissed about the license issue and deciding to completely remake these characters as some kind of thumb-nose to Fox.

None of these reasons are acceptable.

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Fury Confirms Wanda, but Still Not Official

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , on October 3, 2013| 1 Comment »

jackson-furyThe internet is abuzz with the news that Nick Fury, well, Samuel L Jackson, confirmed via the Wallstreet Journal that Elizabeth Olsen will indeed be Scarlet Witch in Avengers 2, Age of Ultron.

“I don’t think we begin shooting before March of next year,” Jackson said of “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the next film to begin shooting in the Marvel universe.  ”I know we’re shooting in London, that James Spader is Ultron and going to be the bad guy, and that we added Ms. [Elizabeth] Olsen [who will play the Scarlet Witch], but I don’t know what she’s doing, if she’s on the inside or the outside. I haven’t seen a script.”

It’s important to note that it’s the journal which added the [who will play the Scarlet Witch], that’st not exactly what Jackson said. It could have been implied/said in part of the interview not published, but it’s not specifically mentioned here. Also, while I’m sure Jackson is close to the production, this is by no means official confirmation of the casting of Wanda.

Until Marvel or Whedon says so, it’s still a ‘rumor’. Of course, Jackson’s comments makes it a highly probable rumor, but still a rumor.

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Avengers 2: ‘Accent’ly British?

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , on August 22, 2013| 2 Comments »

Elle Style Awards, London, Britain - 11 Feb 2013The latest report on Wanda for Avengers 2 is that Elizabeth Olsen is in talks for the role. Now, I have to admit, I haven’t seen her in anything. I can’t say a single thing about her acting, but I’ve heard a lot of good things. And even though she’s not of Eastern European decent, she at least looks close to right for the part. Looks good in brown curly hair and very expressive eyes. A little spray tan and it could work. But here’s the rub, Wanda is Eastern European, she’s the Marvel version of Romani, so why couldn’t they hire one of the hundreds of very capable Eastern European actresses to play her?

An argument could be made that getting an American actress to play an Eastern European isn’t any worse than getting a British person to play an American, or an Australian to play a Canadian, or a Frenchman to play a Czech. It’s not about race, it’s about culture, and as long as they stay true to the character, the actor’s own bloodline shouldn’t matter, right? It’s an argument that is fraught with difficulties with no clear cut answers.

Personally, as much as I would prefer to have a culturally Romani/Eastern European play Wanda, I will settle for an American actress as long as she and the production respects Wanda’s character as Eastern European.

But in that same report, we have comment that she won’t be speaking in a European accent but a British one, thereby clinching the earlier comments that Whedon and Co. were looking to make the twins “edgy and British”.

This… is not acceptable. When you take a character out of a country then you redefine them. Gone is their heritage and birthrights. Gone is their world view and motivations. This is especially true when the culture is something as distinct and unique as Romani. It would be like taking a character that is Texan and making them a New Yorker, or vise versa. It’s a complete disrespect for everything that made that character who they are, for better or worse.

This is especially true for Wanda who is a basically a witch. There is a very spiritual element to her magic/powers and it is highlighted by her heritage. Granted, there is the possibility of going the wrong way with it and turning the character into a racist stereotype of a ‘Gypsy’, but there is also the very real possibility to use Wanda to help rid the world of that negative stereotype. Instead, it looks like they aren’t going to risk it and are taking the safe option of making her British, after all, British is in right now and we can’t offend them no matter how hard we try because they’re just so much better at insulting people than we are.

So the last question is, if Wanda is being stripped of her spiritual heritage, and can’t be a ‘mutant’, then will her magic be dulled down into something much more sterile and cold?

I always try to wait till I have the whole picture and not jump to conclusions, especially this early in the game, after all, Olsen hasn’t been officially signed on yet nor has Wanda’s character traits been absolutely confirmed… but I having a really hard time trying to maintain that level of neutrality.

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