David Farnor | On 28, Aug 2024

James Spader will return to the MCU for the upcoming Disney+ Vision series.

The series, which is currently untitled, will serve as a solo outing for the character who last appeared in Disney+ series, WandaVision. That 2021 show picked up after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, during which – spoiler alert – the synthezoid was killed by Thanos. In WandaVision, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) brought Vision (Paul Bettany) back through magic, although the series also featured another incarnation of Vision: an android with a blue-grey appearance and Vision’s memories.

Earlier this year, it was announced that Bettany would reprise his role in a spin-off series. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports that he will be joined by another returning face from the MCU: James Spader, who voiced the villainous robot Ultron in the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Ultron, you may recall, was a sentient android created by Tony Stark, ultimately – spoiler alert – being defeated by the Avengers through the fusing of Ultron’s attempted creation of Vision with Jarvis, Stark’s AI assistant. What the events of that film mean for Ultron’s return, and Ultron’s relationship with Vision, isn’t yet clear – but the show will likely serve as a concluding part of a TV trilogy that will soon continue with another WandaVision follow-up, Agatha All Along.

Spader is no stranger to the small screen, having starred in The Office, Boston Legal and The Blacklist.

Behind the camera, the series will be led by showrunner Terry Matalas, who previously was the exec-producer on Star Trek spin-off series Picard.

 

Marvel orders Vision spin-off for Disney+

25th May 2024

Paul Bettany’s Vision will return to our screens in a new Disney+ series.

The series, which is currently untitled, will serve as a solo outing for the character who last appeared in another Disney+ series, WandaVision.

That 2021 show picked up after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, during which – spoiler alert – the synthezoid was killed by Thanos. In WandaVision, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) brought him back through magic, although the series also featured another incarnation of Vision: an android with a blue-grey appearance and Vision’s memories. The new series will pick up after the events of that series, which will presumably mean that it will focus on this ghost version of Vision.

Bettany will return to reprise his role, while behind the scenes, Terry Matalas will serve as showrunner. Matalas was an exec-producer on another recent spin-off project, Star Trek: Picard, which saw Patrick Stewart reprise his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard years after last playing the role.

Picard, which grew into a Star Trek: The Next Generation reunion, ended with its third season and picked up a WGA award nomination for its finale. Matalas’ previous projects include Syfy series 12 Monkeys, which ran for four seasons.

Vision is the second spin-off from WandaVision on the way from Marvel, following Agatha All Along, from WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer, who had previously also worked on a Vision spin-off.

The show is Marvel’s first live-action TV commission in almost two years, reports Variety, which highlights how differently Marvel is approaching Disney+ series, with roughly half as many shows in the works each year.

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