With less than five months to go before its official release date, Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is taking its promotions to the high gear in its overall attempt to guarantee the blockbuster success of the superhero movie come May 1, 2015.
But even this early, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is already a blockbuster given the presence of independent Marvel superheroes in it and the recent successes that each of them has made in their solo movies recently.
The movie has Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor in it, and all of the solo movies of the three did very good at the tills. In fact, it is because of the smashing global success of “Iron Man 3” in 2013 that Robert Downey Jr. who plays Iron Man/Tony Stark made it to the top of the 2014 Forbes’ list of highest paid actors. Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, is also in the list and so is Chris Evans, who plays Captain America/Steve Rogers.
So in terms of blockbuster appeal, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” has lots of it. There is also the additional bonus of having other big name stars in the movie to draw in more audience like Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and some rumored few surprises to appear as cameo in the movie including Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange and Paul Bettany as Vision.
There is no telling how many more big name stars will be seen in the movie but for sure Director Joss Whedon had a challenging time putting them all together and having everyone work like clockwork in one movie.
Signature strategy
As part of its overall promotional strategy for the movie, Marvel has licensed Hot Toys to produce and make available action figures for the huge character line-up of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
Hot Toys has started teasing some of the familiar superhero action figures it would be releasing and on January 10, the company officially unveiled Ultron, the Avengers’ main nemesis in the film. The character looks very fiery in its red image. Hot Toys will be constantly releasing Marvel characters leading to the showing of the “Avengers: Age of Ultron” on May 1, 2015.
While Hot Toys has already shown initial samples of the Mavel action figures from its huge toy lineup display during the Toy Soul 2014 event held on December 4, 2014 at Hong Kong, the company has yet to officially release all the characters, which it only started with the release of Ultron on January 10, 2015.
According to Movieweb, the Hot Toys’ Marvel action figure roster includes Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Ultron.
It is likely that Hot Toys may also consider adding the action figures of Doctor Strange, Vision, and a few more Marvel characters eventually.