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AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015): Elizabeth Olsen cast as Scarlet Witch

Elizabeth Olsen

Elizabeth Olsen cast in The Avengers Age of Ultron. The casting of Elizabeth Olsen in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) answers the question of who will play one of the new female characters in the Joss Whedon directed film. Elizabeth Olsen will play the character of Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch in the The Avengers‘ sequel. Her brother in the film, Quicksilver, will be played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Elizabeth Olsen confirmed her role in The Avengers: Age of Ultron during a interview:

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[Aaron Taylor-Johson and I] get to play husband and wife [in Godzilla], and we get to play twin brother and sister [in Avengers]. 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 we get to work with each other more and to actually work with each other. I think it’s going to be fun.

On Scarlet Witch:

The Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) is a fictional comic book character that appears in books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in X-Men #4 (March 1964) and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. She is the daughter of Magneto, the twin sister of Quicksilver, and the paternal half-sister of Polaris.

Debuting in the Silver Age of comic books, the Scarlet Witch has been featured in six decades of Marvel continuity, starring in two self-titled limited series with husband the Vision and as a regular team member in superhero title the Avengers.

The Scarlet Witch is a mutant who had the ability to manipulate probability via her “hexes” (often manifesting physically as “hex spheres” or “hex bolts”). These hexes are relatively short range, and are limited to her line of sight. Casting a hex requires a gesture and concentration on her part, though the gestures are largely a focus for the concentration and despite this precision, the hexes are not necessarily guaranteed to work, particularly if Wanda is tired or using her powers excessively. If overextended, Wanda’s hexes can backfire, causing probability to work against her wishes or to undo previous hexes. Early in her career, her hexes were unconscious on her part, and would be automatically triggered whenever she made a particular gesture, regardless of her intent. These hexes would only manifest “bad luck” effects. She later gained enough control over her powers that her powers only work when she wants them to, and they are not limited to negative effects. She can use her hexes to light flammable objects, contain or remove air from a particular volume, deflect objects, stop the momentum of projectiles, open doors, explode objects, create force fields and deflect magical attacks, etc. The effects are varied but almost always detrimental to opponents, such as causing the artifact the Evil Eye to work against inter-dimensional warlord Dormammu, the robot Ultron to short circuit, or a gas main underneath the Brotherhood of Mutants to explode. Wanda is an expert combatant having been trained by both Captain America and Hawkeye, as well as being an adept tactician due to her years of experience working as an Avenger and her experience in a variety of combat situations. The Scarlet Witch also has the potential to wield magic and later learned that she was destined to serve the role of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension’s mystical energy.

Writer Kurt Busiek redefined the Scarlet Witch’s powers, and maintained that it was in fact an ability to manipulate chaos magic, activated due to the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy. This was offered as an explanation for her various feats that seemed to go beyond probability alteration, as well as why her hexes almost always have an effect that is favorable to her goals. During Busiek’s run as well as the subsequent run by Geoff Johns, she was shown to be capable of large-scale spells given enough concentration and time to shape the chaos magic to a specific goal, including the resurrection of Wonder Man.

In House of M, her power was depicted as sufficient to rewrite her entire universe, and cause multiverse-threatening ripples. In The Children’s Crusade it was revealed that this omnipotence was not part of her natural power level, but the result of a cosmic magical source that increased a magic user’s powers to god-like levels., By the end of the event she had returned to her previous power level, able to alter probability and work magic, but not able to change reality at will.

She also has a degree of resistance to the Phoenix Force and can also cause pain to its hosts, such as Cyclops when he tried to stop Hope from going with her. Although this becomes less effective as the Phoenix Force portions are divided among those who have not yet been defeated.[volume & issue needed] A vs X #12 confirmed that her powers involve chaos magic, and stated that she has “Mutant Magic”, and the “primal source of her chaos” magic is cosmic.

We previously published these Avengers: Age of Ultron articles:

The Avengers (2012): Ending Explained, The Avengers 2 Plot Details

The Avengers 2: Joss Whedon directing, producing live Marvel TV Series

Robert Downey Jr cast in Marvel’s The Avengers 2 + The Avengers 3

The Avengers: Age of Ultron: Ant-Man, Villains, Avengers 2 Title Revealed

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The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): James Spader is Ultron in Avengers 2

The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Quicksilver

The Avengers: Age of Ultron cast also includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr., Elizabeth Olsen, Cobie Smulders, Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, and Anthony Mackie.

Leave your thoughts on Elizabeth Olsen’s casting in The Avengers: Age of Ultron in the comments section below. For more The Avengers: Age of Ultron photos, videos, and information, visit our The Avengers Page, subscribe to us by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, or “like” us on Facebook. The Avengers: Age of Ultron opens in US theaters through Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on May 1, 2015.

Source: Wikipedia, Slashfilm, MTV

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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