Way, way back when "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" was still just "Marvel's The Avengers 2" — okay, it's only been like a week and a half since the new title came along, so let's go further back than that — writer-director Joss Whedon kinda hinted that he'd been brewing on the story for movie two for quite some time. Such a long time, in fact, that he had an idea of what to do in the second installment before he'd even signed on for the first.

Now that the villainous cat, er living automaton, is outta the studio's bag, though, he's spilled a little more about his long-lived ultra Ultron plans for "Avengers 2."

Speaking to Total Film at San Diego Comic-Con, he said, "I was pitching Ultron before I took the job on the first movie."

"I was like, 'I don’t know if I want to do this, but for the second one, you should totally do Ultron,'" Whedon continued, "Because he’s been a thorn in their side as much as any other character over the years and particularly back in my history."

The artificially intelligent robot has appeared regularly throughout the "Avengers" comic series since 1968 (that's 45 years of tormenting for the supervillain), so Whedon thinks he's "great" and is "somebody who can juice things up and he’s a real problem for the Avengers. That’s not always easy to find. It’s not like the Vulture is really going to give them a hard time for 20 minutes." There was probably some kinda super nerdy hidden clue in that Vulture reference, but more importantly it sounds like Ultron's gonna be one BFD indeed.

"The Avengers: Age of Ultron" hits theaters on May 1, 2015.

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