When you think about it, it’s kind of odd that Paul Bettany seemed to recede as a leading man just when he was blowing up a decade ago. I think a lot of us just figured that we also wouldn’t find a lot of reasons to leave the house if we’d married Jennifer Connelly.

In any case, his most prominent mainstream role for about the last decade has been as the voice of Tony Stark’s omnipresent digital servant J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Marvel Studios movies; and as of an hour ago the long-term planning logic of hiring an upscale-accented Brit who’s also movie-star handsome for that role makes a lot more sense: He’ll stepping in front of the camera in “AVENGERS 2: AGE OF ULTRON” as robotic superhero The Vision.

Well, that’s interesting.

That Vision would turn up in the sequel was something of a foregone conclusion, being that his origins are tied to titular villain Ultron and his longest-running character-arc is a human/android romance with Scarlet Witch, previously announced and set to be played by Elizabeth Olsen (incidentally, I’d put serious money on her and Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Quicksilver showing up an establishing walk-on either in “CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER” or “GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.”) For a long time, the popular fan theory was that he’d be a robotic revival for Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson (in the comics, Vision is created by Ultron using the brain-patterns of dead superhero Wonder Man and the chassis of the original android Human Torch) but “AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D” has taken that character in a markedly different direction.

So the smart money now says that Vision (whom I imagine will still start out as a henchman and either go good by the finale or be trending that way for “AVENGERS 3”) is some permutation of J.A.R.V.I.S, which is what a lot of people assumed would be Ultron’s origin – even after it was revealed months ago that James Spader, not Bettany, would be doing the voice. In the comics, Ultron is the gone-wrong creation of Hank “Ant-Man” Pym, but he won’t be showing up (so far) until “ANT-MAN” which comes out after this. So where does Ultron come from?

Given that the SDCC teaser for the film was an Iron Man helmet violent morphing into Ultron’s head, I think it’s still pretty safe to assume that Tony Stark will be the human creator Ultron turns on in the Cinematic Universe version of his origin. It just makes the most sense, and my expectation remains that “AVENGERS 2” will probably wrap-up with the team in a dark place (“EMPIRE STRIKES BACK,” “WRATH OF KHAN,” etc) and Iron Man in particular left in a defeated position from which to make some kind of triumphant swan-song in Part 3 (RDJ’s full-time Marvel contract runs out after that point.)

But if he (apparently) isn’t “Evil J.A.R.V.I.S,” what is he? An Iron Man armor with a mind of it’s own? Some new thing they’ll make up just for this film? Plausible. My own pet theory – which I’ve been joking about for awhile but now feel like they just might actually do – is that, since Ultron in the comics starts out as more-or-less a Roomba that builds itself a humanoid body, movie-Ultron could well be DUM-E (aka “Dummy”), Tony Stark’s loyal but mostly-useless pet robot-arm from the “IRON MAN” movies. How fun would that be, for The Avengers next big enemy to be a clumsy workshop-bot that finally gets sick of Tony making fun of it?

So. Here’s a trailer for a movie called “ZOMBEAVERS,” about killer undead(?) beavers:

Here’s one of my “stupid movies I wanted to make, then didn’t” columns from The Escapist. Yeah.

There’s a lesson in all of this, and it’s that whoever told me to think my decisions through and not just go with whatever instinct pops into my head at a given moment was completely fucking full of shit.

Well, good to see some things don’t change. Unfortunately, one of those things is that “AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2” looks awful. Enthusiastically awful, yes, but awful all the same. This new “sizzle reel” trailer basically gives us Electro in a nutshell: He’s Jim Carrey’s Riddler from “BATMAN FOREVER,” (overlooked science dweeb with a stalker-crush on the hero) and he gets his powers from being bitten by radioactive electric eels.

Poor Emma Stone is stuck right in the middle of this mess, putting on a brave face while she waits for a chance to head back to her trailer and shove more pins into that voodoo doll of Jennifer Lawrence.

It occurs to me that “CAPTAIN AMERICA,” as his own franchise and as part of “THE AVENGERS,” is pretty-much the central 21st century presence of American pride/patriotism on the world stage. I’m pretty okay with that:

Apparently Marvel/Disney are pretty okay with that, too: The post-production buzz on this one has been off-the-charts positive, particularly considering the early head-scratching over the decision to hire Anthony and Joe Russo – a brother team mainly known for directing TV sitcoms and “YOU, ME & DUPREE.” But the Marvel people are so impressed with their work here that they’ve already signed them for Part 3, scheduled to hit sometime after “AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.”

Aaaaand the expectations come back down to Earth.

For awhile the buzz on “AGE OF EXTINCTION” was that it was going to be some kind of serious departure from the previous installments: Not just a whole new cast (only Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are returning) but a different tone and storyline that may or may not involve time-travel and The Dinobots. But eventually, it became a little clearer that the motif here is less “fresh start” and more “we should do one of these, but partially set in China because for whatever reason China looooooooooves the TRANSFORMERS movies:”

Still, those do seem to be Dinobots, albeit blown up to Godzilla scale and monster-ized (I thought the two-headed guy with the wings might be one of the Terrorcons, but it’s Swoop); which is a very Michael Bay-sounding approach: “Can we make the T-Rex BIGGER? Also scarier?” It’ll take more than the lack of LaBeouf to really sell me on this, but Optimus Prime riding a robot dinosaur is a hell of a start. Also: The big ship thing at the very beginning and the unnamed robot turning into a turret-canon = Unicron and Galvatron?

I’ve observed before that the Disney Company, despite being founded by (and named for!) the guy who practically invented comodifying nostalgia, has been slow to the party in trading on the nostalgia-market for it’s own properties. But they’re making up for lost time now, with a specific focus on icons especially prized by now-grown Gen-X/Y fans (see: live-action “Sleeping Beauty” focused on fan-fave baddie Maleficent). Now, they’ve innevitably cast their gaze on the other cash-cow of their legendary 90s Renaissance: “The Disney Afternoon.”

90s kids? You’re getting a live-action “RESCUE RANGERS” movie.

For those born post-90s, Disney’s big weekday/after-school TV “thing” in that era was reworking old characters into then-modern genre frameworks a’la “DUCKTALES.” “RANGERS” (which started out as a “RESCUERS” update) was a mystery/action/cop riff built around a team of rodent crimefighters led by the chipmunk duo who’d originated as B-listers in the original Mickey etc. shorts. The new project is an origin story (the series had a feature-length multi-episode pilot) based on a pitch from director Robert Rugan, a commercial director most famous for a Durex Condoms viral ad.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find out which god I have to please and how to get a “DARKWING DUCK” movie out of this…