When news first broke that director Joss Whedon would be introducing the Maximoff twins Wanda and Pietro aka Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, the fan base was pretty surprised since the two are most notable for being the children of Magneto. The drama behind it is that Marvel Studios doesn't actually own the rights to Magneto or even the word "mutants", so it seemed to be a bit odd for Marvel to go with two characters who's origin will now be a challenge to explain. But things got even more stirred up just a few weeks ago, when director Bryan Singer shockingly revealed he too would be including the character of Quicksilver in his film X-Men: Days of Future Past. Two different studios, two different interpretations of the character, and only one year apart from each other. But as if that wasn't crazy enough now rumor has hit that Aaron Johnson is the top contender for the Quicksilver role in Avengers 2, where as his Kick-Ass co-star Evan Peters is playing the very same character for Fox. And so the soap opera continues.
The Wrap broke the news that Johnson is the top candidate on
Marvel's wishlist for the role, and although there's been some schedule problems brought up they seem pretty set on him for the role. Aaron Johnson isn't exactly a very surprising actor to be considered for the role, having previously been a candidate for numerous other superhero roles including
Spider-Man in Marc Webb's reboot, and the roles of both Beast and Cyclops in
X-Men: First Class. Johnson's clearly grown and matured as an actor since being considered for those roles, and is now headlining a blockbuster film next summer in Gareth Edward's
Godzilla reboot. While it's a bit odd for
Marvel to pick up Johnson for such a key superhero role when he's already in the midst of playing the lead in the
Kick-Ass series, he's got the look, age, and acting abilities for the Quicksilver role.
It's worth noting just how extensive
Marvel gets when considering actors for their superhero lead roles, especially looking at the amount of actors who were speculated for the part of Star-Lord in James Gunn's
Guardians of the Galaxy which included Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eddie Redmayne, Michael Rossenbaum, Joseph Kasinski, Joel Edgerton, and many more before Chris Pratt eventually landed the role. With such a key new character joining alongside Earth's Mightiest Heroes, it can be assumed that
Marvel's looking at a lot more young talent than just simply Aaron Johnson, although the fact that they're considering seems to give us a better idea of what version of the character they're planning to go with. Whedon seems to be going for a more adolescent Quicksilver, which means their probably looking at actresses around the same age for his twin sister Scarlet Witch. It had previously been rumored that Marvel had been looking at
Hanna and
The Host star Saoirse Ronan for the part of Scarlett Witch, and Johnson's involvement further supports those claims.
Whedon's definitely got the upper hand in my opinion in comparison to Singer with these two characters, as they were both original members of
The Avengers, and Whedon's writing talent is sure to explore the character's brother sister relationship much deeper than Singer's would. While Singer may be able to access the Quicksilver's origin and connection with his father Magneto, it seems odd for him to just randomly show up now, especially considering the fact that Ian McKellen's Magneto is arguably way too old to have a teenage son. There's still the possibility that Quicksilver could be the son of the 1970s Magneto played by Michael Fassbender, but that still wouldn't explain his absence from the rest of the series. Singer himself has already pretty much admitted that Quicksilver is really just being featured for a key action sequence that he claims "only Quicksilver himself can perform" so don't expect Singer's Quicksilver to be any more than another mutant in the ensemble of
Day of Future Past, where as he'll really be in the spotlight along with his sister in
Avengers 2.
It'll be interesting to just see who does the better job handling these characters, and how audiences will react to having two different actors playing the same character in unrelated films. It'll also be ironic if Johnson does end up landing the role, and we'll have two actors whose careers were launched from the same movie (
Kick-Ass) now playing the same superhero. We'll also be looking out for just how Whedon is going to explain the two characters origins without even being able to mention their birth father or why they have their powers, but I'm sure Whedon will find a way to beat around the bush while still being able to have it all make sense to audiences. At least I hope he will.
So how would you feel if Aaron Johnson played Quicksilver in Avengers 2? Do you think he'd do a better job in the role than Evan Peter's will?
