Exterminate Humanity (Starting With Duckie): James Spader Cast As Ultron In Avengers 2

So the big geek news today was that James Spader has been cast to play Ultron in Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron, to which my initial reaction was, “Huh. Whatever.”

Seriously, I didn’t have much of an initial positive reaction to the news, firstly because early this morning, I read a wild-assed rumor on Ain’t It Cool News that the plan for Ultron was to make Tony Stark’s JARVIS artificial intelligence go rogue and start tearing shit up for, I don’t know, being forced to spend four movies as part of the programming for Stark’s jockstrap or something. And while I didn’t know whether there was any truth to the rumor or not (clearly, there was not), the idea made a lot of sense to me. It utilized an existing character, it completely cut around the inclusion of Hank Pym in Ultron’s creation, and most importantly: it would have eliminated the need for probably at least 20 minutes of story setup to get Ultron off his ass, on his feet, and whimpering about his daddy issues in ways that would embarrass Lena Dunham.

But James Spader? Who really gives all that much of a damn about James Spader?

I mean, given my demographic, I should care about Spader, except I think I am the only member of Generation X who has never seen Pretty In Pink or Sex, Lies And Videotape. While I was in high school, I skipped Pretty In Pink for two reasons (those reasons being my testicles), and when it comes to the latter, well, I already had videotapes of sex, about which I had to lie about. James Spader was just that kinda wooden pretty boy who always played the guy that the audience wasn’t pulling for, right?

But then I gave it a little more thought. Sure, those two movies are probably the first thing you think of when you think of Spader, but the guy also spent four years on Boston Legal working with William Shatner – Captain Kirk himself. He was the first guy through the Stargate in Stargate, back when Richard Dean Anderson was still cashing his MacGyver residual checks at the local dive bar and thinking about taking that job painting houses. He played a guy who could only get a boner when witnessing massive destruction in Crash (no, not the Crash that won the Academy Award for Best Picture; I’m talking about the good one). And most importantly: in Wolf, he was a werewolf who not only would gut and eat Kristen Stewart without a second thought, but he beat the living shit out of Jack Nicholson: the fucking Joker.

So while it might not seem like it, Spader has enough geek cred for me to believe that, at the flat minimum, he’s not just doing a voiceover gig for a quick paycheck. And frankly, in a lot of the movies I’ve seen Spader in, he’s half a damn robot anyway. So this could work out.

Avengers: Age of Ultron opens… sometime after they start shooting it. So a long, long time from now.