James Spader to Play Ultron in 'The Avengers' Sequel

Well, this was unexpected. On Thursday, Marvel announced that James Spader would play Ultron in The Avengers: The Age of Ultron.

James Spader will face off against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as the villain in Marvel’s "Avengers: Age of Ultron," the sequel to 2012’s record-breaking "Marvel’s The Avengers." The Emmy Award-winning actor will play Ultron in the Avengers’ much anticipated return to the big screen from writer/director Joss Whedon. The film comes to theaters on May 1, 2015. 

Spader's casting goes against the popular theory that Ultron would voiced by Paul Bettany, the voice of JARVIS in all three Iron Man movies and The Avengers. With Hank Pym out of the picture for this movie, Marvel theorists had pegged the creation of the villain Ultron on one of Tony Stark's suits going rogue. With JARVIS operating the suits, it made sense that he would become the personality of Ultron. Looks like Marvel has other ideas.

Marvel's press release doesn't mention whether Spader will do the motion-capture performance for Ultron or if he'll just be voicing the character. The studio does use the phrase "will play," which makes me think Spader will be more involved than just reading lines.

Did anyone see Spader as the voice of Ultron? While I would have never expected the pairing, Spader has proven that he can play cold yet intelligent characters. As long as he doesn't channel his performance as Robert California from The Office ...