If you’re a Marvel geek, there’s a very good chance that you recognize the image below. That’s because it’s a still from an Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer released back in January, and has been the subject of endless speculation for months now. After seeing the mysterious woman in the cave, many fans jumped to the conclusion that she is a character being kept hidden, and would only be revealed as significant within the context of the film. As it turns out, all of the guesses were 100 percent wrong, and the truth of the matter is that the mysterious figure doesn’t actually appear in the upcoming blockbuster.
Having gotten to see The Avengers: Age of Ultron last week, it struck me as odd that the mysterious lady in the cave wasn’t actually featured in the movie, so I took the opportunity to ask Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige about it during a one-on-one chat. I asked about the woman, both curious about her identity and whether or not she was a significant character who just wound up on the cutting room floor, and the Marvel producer explained that she was merely a background figure in a sequence where Thor does a bit of hallucinating. Feige explained,
That was just the imagery. That was just interesting imagery as part of a dream sequence… It was part of when Thor was looking around at the oddity and the strangeness happening and it was just an image marketing grabbed.
After so many months of speculation, I was somewhat shocked by the fact that the mysterious cave lady turned out to be a character of no importance – especially when the folks at Marvel must know that fans are analyzing every single frame of every trailer. As a result, I asked Kevin Feige if the studio was actively screwing with movie-goers by including the image, and he told me,
Sometimes, not in that case. In that case it was just an arresting image which seemed interesting and when marketing presented it to us, we said, ‘Oh yeah, cool! This is great! Amazing, great work.’ And then it started to go out and I thought, ‘People are going to read into all this stuff.’
I suppose that this is just kind of a lesson for fans: we can’t read into everything and assume that every moment is an Easter Egg.
This news about the mysterious cave lady may be seen as disappointing to fans, but the good news is that The Avengers: Age of Ultron has plenty more cool moments and surprises in store for you when it’s released on May 1st.
