I know I’m not the only one thinking this when I say WandaVision confirmed that Paul Bettany’s Vision is hot now. He may be a whole lot of purple but, when the Disney+ series showed the character in various clothes and hairstyles as he raised TV children with Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda, he gave us real hot dad energy. Plus, the character philosophically debating the Ship of Theseus with himself instead of yet another violent brawl? No one’s doing it like him. And back when his first appearance in Age of Ultron was being developed, there were apparently a lot of discussions around seeing a lot more of Vision... quite literally.
In the 2015 Avengers sequel, Paul Bettany’s involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe went from being a voice in Tony Stark’s armor to becoming a full-fledged synthezoid who is born midway through the movie. Paul Bettany recently offered more details about the creation of Vision in Age of Ultron, who was originally going to have a penis in the movie. In his words:
Joss Whedon was manning the ship at that point. He was wondering, Vision’s going to be born, we’re going to see him born, ostensibly naked, he has to have a penis. Because he’s naked and he’s being born. Everybody there, Louis D'Esposito, Kevin Feige, everybody was like ‘Uh, I’m not sure that’s such a great idea for Vision. For him to rise up out of the crypt as it were with a penis.’ And he said ‘I need him, I need to see his penis.’
When Bettany spoke on Conan, he remembered how Age of Ultron’s director initially wanted Vision to have a visible penis during his birth scene, because why not? But the other collaborators involved weren’t into it. The actor continued with:
So artists were sent away to do all these renderings of Vision being born with a penis. They put them all up on this huge wall at Marvel Studios, and they invited Joss in. And Joss stood in front of this huge wall and he went ‘Never have I been more sure that I don’t need to see Vision with a penis.’
Yeah, sounds like the right call… let’s keep it PG-13. Even if we’re officially obsessed with Paul Bettany’s Vision nowadays, it doesn’t mean we need to see every angle of his anatomy. Though it is pretty hilarious to think about the visual effects folks over at Marvel being tasked with creating Vision’s penis for Joss Whedon, only for the filmmaker to realize he was wrong the whole time. But hey, it makes a funny story at least. If you’re curious for a rewatch about how the said scene turned out, here it is:
Now, this is tasteful. Vision emerges from his chamber in his birthday suit as one would do during their birth, but there’s no Vision penis on his anatomy to throw us off and take us out of the action sequence. Within about a minute of Vision being born, the character fashions his own suit to go over his purple body. And then the movie went back to the world-crushing mission at hand.
Following the WandaVision finale, we're not sure what’s in the cards for Paul Bettany’s Vision next, but Scarlet Witch’s storyline will officially continue in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which arrives on March 25, 2022. Until then, check out Marvel’s full lineup of upcoming movies.
