James Spader reportedly rejoining MCU as Ultron in ‘WandaVision’ spin-off ‘Vision’

Vision, the spin-off from WandaVision starring Paul Bettany reprising as the titular Avenger android, will also feature a throwback star from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: James Spader.

That’s according to The Hollywood Reporter, which says the former Blacklist star will be reprising as Ultron, the killer robot from whose consciousness Vision was partially spawned in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Ultron was an A.I. created by Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark as a peacekeeper, but it went amok and turned itself into a “murder bot,” as Mark Ruffalo‘s Bruce Banner later put it.

According to the film, Ultron was essentially one of the Vision’s “fathers,” along with Stark, Banner and JARVIS, Stark’s A.I. assistant.

While Vision was killed by Thanos in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, he was brought back to life by his grieving wife, Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), in WandaVision — first as a magical projection from her grief-addled mind and later in a physical white form built from the original’s corpse by a government agency. 

The Vision series reportedly centers on this reborn Vision version, and according to the trade, Terry Matalas is calling the shots on the Disney+-bound Marvel Studios show. 

The first WandaVision spin-off, the witchy Agatha All Along, debuts on the streaming service in September.

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