Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, and Phase 3. SDCC Marvel Studios Panel

The main event is here! The Marvel Studios panel has begun at 2014 San Diego Comic Con and we are eagerly awaiting news about Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Marvel’s Phase 3, and anything else the studio might have squirrelled away far from rumor-spreading lips.

Readers, assemble!

• Initially present at the panel were Marvel Studios creative head Kevin Feige, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed, Ant-Man cast members Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas.
• Corey Stoll has been confirmed as playing Yellowjacket in Ant-Man.
• Evangeline Lilly will be playing a character by the name of Hope Van Dyne, also known as Hank Pym’s daughter!
• If director Peyton Reed’s nerd cred was in doubt…it turns out he once designed a poster for his punk band that was an homage to the cover of Avengers #1. Reed coincidentally cast himself as Ant-Man.
• The basic plot of Ant-Man centers around Michael Douglas, as Hank Pym, having had his company snaked out from under him years ago by Darren Cross, also known as Yellowjacket. Douglas begins training Paul Rudd’s character Scott Lang to use the Ant-Man suit and powers so Lang can take back the company. The movie is essentially a heist film.
• Michael Douglas is really looking forward to playing a comic book character, since his roles usually tend to be very serious and realistic.
• Filming officially begins on August 18 in Atlanta, Georgia.
• Some new Ant-Man rehearsal and CGI was shown to the audience, involving Pym explaining to Lang why he chose him (because Lang is just a normal guy) and then Lang as a miniaturized Ant-Man being chased, panicked, on a rooftop and finding an ant to ride…
• That doesn’t go so well, so Lang jumps! And a flying ant comes to rescue him. Our (hero?) flies away…

The Ant-Man cast and crew shuffled off stage quickly after the new footage, making way for the Avengers!

• Robert Downey, Jr. was first out, carrying a flashy briefcase, then popping it open to reveal roses! Which he then tossed out to the audience. THIS GUY.

Via Ryan Turek on Twitter:

• Our assembled Avengers for the evening are Downey, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Paul Bettany, James Spader, and Elizabeth Olsen.
• Joss Whedon is laid up from knee surgery in London and couldn’t attend. Scarlett Johansson’s due date is soon, so that’s why she’s absent, although she sent a video greeting.
• Jeremy Renner on playing Hawkeye: “It’s like the Friday at the end of the week.” Fri-day, Fri-day, gotta get down on Fri-day…
• On the street Mark Ruffalo only gets recognized as the Hulk now.
• Chris Hemsworth on what he’d like to have Thor do: “Turn him into a woman! I think it could be my Oscar.”
• Samuel L. Jackson noted that he’s been to Comic-Con every year since Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. So…15 straight years of Comic-Con right there.
• Oh god, it’s been 15 years since the days of yippee-podracing and dashed hopes.
• Anyway.
• Chris Evans on Cap’s current status: “He’s up to speed but now he’s looking for a place to belong. With S.H.I.E.L.D. gone the Avengers are all he really has.”
• Paul Bettany’s kids are way more interested in him now that he has to actually show up on screen as Vision. “I used to just turn up in a dark room, read some lines and they’d hand me a bag of cash.”
• Elizabeth Olsen just straight up called her character Scarlet Witch a mutant…er, “mutated person.”
• This is possibly the longest stretch of time in recorded history that RDJ has gone without talking. In reference to Olsen: “She actually cast a spell on me two weeks ago. It burns. Hopefully, before all this is done, she’ll remove it.“
• Ugh.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron footage finally makes an appearance! The Avengers are out of costume and at a party in the Avengers Tower. Thor’s hammer is sitting on the table…

You can see a still of the party on Entertainment Weekly. Here’s a small screenshot of it.

• …and Tony is trying to lift it. No dice. Then he uses an Iron Man hand. Still nothing. Then he and Rhodey suit up and try together. Still nothing. It’s Cap’s turn now….
• And he moves it a little bit! But then there’s an explosive noise.
• An old armor of Tony’s lurches into room, zombie-like, by itself. Then it speaks and it becomes clear that this is Ultron. ”There’s only one path to peace,“ Ultron announces. ”Your extinction!”
• The footage then went into a rapid cut montage, including Banner in a straitjacket, the Hulk fighting Hulkbuster armor, the Avengers scattered dead before Tony Stark and Cap’s shield broken in half, Ultron glorying in his final form, Thor grabbing Stark by the throat (!!), Hulk tossing a car at Iron Man, and various action snippets. Why does everyone hate Iron Man so much? Is it because of the whole murderous-robot thing?
• And Josh Brolin enters wearing the Infinity Gauntlet! He asks RDJ where his rose is. Downey dutifully hands him one, which Brolin then eats.

Via Ryan Turek on Twitter:

• Chris Pratt and James Gunn then Skype in to announce that Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will come out on July 28, 2017!
• And then that’s it.
• Wait, that’s it?
• No news on anything past summer 2015?
• Aw.