WandaVision

''WandaVision'' is an American television miniseries created by Jac Schaeffer for the streaming service Disney+, based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch and Vision. It is the first television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) produced by Marvel Studios, sharing continuity with the films of the franchise, and is set after the events of the film '' Avengers: Endgame'' (2019). It follows Wanda Maximoff and Vision as they live an idyllic suburban life in the town of Westview, New Jersey, until their reality starts moving through different decades of sitcom homages and television tropes. Schaeffer served as head writer for the series, which was directed by Matt Shakman.

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their respective roles as Maximoff and Vision from the film series, with Debra Jo Rupp, Fred Melamed, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, Kat Dennings, and Evan Peters also starring. By September 2018, Marvel Studios was developing a number of limited series for Disney+ centered on supporting characters from the MCU films such as Maximoff and Vision, with Olsen and Bettany returning. Schaeffer was hired in January 2019, with the series officially announced that April, and Shakman joining in August. The production used era-appropriate sets, costumes, and effects to recreate the different sitcom styles that the series pays homage to. Filming began in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2019, before production halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production resumed in Los Angeles in September 2020 and wrapped that November.

''WandaVision'' premiered with its first two episodes on January 15, 2021, and ran for nine episodes, concluding on March 5. It is the first series, and beginning, of Phase Four of the MCU. The series received critical acclaim from critics with praise for its homages to past sitcoms and for the performances of its cast, especially those of Olsen, Bettany, and Hahn, though there was criticism for the finale. It was widely discussed and analyzed by fans based on various popular theories, as well as by commentators for its exploration of grief and nostalgia. The series has received numerous accolades, including 23 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning three. Olsen reprised her role in the film ''Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'' (2022), which continues Maximoff's story from ''WandaVision'', while two spin-off series respectively focused on Hahn's Agatha Harkness and Bettany's Vision are in development.

Premise

Three weeks after the events of '' Avengers: Endgame'' (2019), Wanda Maximoff and Vision are living an idyllic suburban life in the town of Westview, New Jersey, trying to conceal their true natures. As their surroundings begin to move through different decades and they encounter various television tropes, the couple suspects that things are not as they seem.

Cast and characters

* Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch:
An Avenger who can harness chaos magic, engage in telepathy and telekinesis, and alter reality. Olsen said the series brings the character more in line with the comic book version, including depicting her mental illness, while introducing the "Scarlet Witch" moniker to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Executive producer Kevin Feige said the series explores the extent and origin of Maximoff's powers. Olsen felt her "ownership" of Maximoff was strengthened during development of the series, which allowed her to explore new parts of the character's personality such as her humor and sassiness. She was thrilled that ''WandaVision'' focuses on Maximoff rather than making her a supporting character as in the films, and was sold on joining the series when Feige mentioned specific Scarlet Witch comic storylines that inspired ''WandaVision''. Olsen was influenced by Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Lucille Ball for her performance. Michaela Russell portrays a young Maximoff.
* Paul Bettany as Vision:
An android and former Avenger created using the artificial intelligences J.A.R.V.I.S. and Ultron as well as the Mind Stone, who was killed in the film '' Avengers: Infinity War'' (2018). Bettany portrays a new version of the character created by Maximoff within her reality from the part of the Mind Stone that lives in her, who is the embodiment of her sadness, hope, and love. The writers referred to him as "Soul Vision", and Bettany described him as "decent and honorable". He was influenced by the performances of Dick Van Dyke and Hugh Laurie for this version. Bettany also plays the original character, referred to as "White Vision" or "The Vision", who is reassembled and reactivated by S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division). That version has an all-white appearance, similar to when the comic book character was resurrected with an all-white body and no memories or emotions. Bettany differentiated the two versions by portraying the latter as both familiar and intimidating.
* Debra Jo Rupp as Sharon Davis: A Westview resident and wife of Todd who plays "Mrs. Hart" in the fictional ''WandaVision'' sitcom.
* Fred Melamed as Todd Davis: A Westview resident and husband of Sharon who plays "Arthur Hart", Vision's boss, in the fictional ''WandaVision'' sitcom.
* Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness:
A witch who masquerades as "Agnes", Maximoff and Vision's "nosy neighbor" within the fictional ''WandaVision'' sitcom. Hahn described Agnes as the neighbor that "won't get off their couch at the end of the night" and is "always in heirbusiness", and likened Agatha's relationship with Maximoff to Antonio Salieri's with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She explained that Agatha has been studying magic for centuries and is maddened to see it come so naturally to Maximoff. Agatha was conceived as a mentor figure to Maximoff, but was shifted by the writers to be more antagonistic to better serve the series' structure. Despite this, Agatha retains qualities of teaching for Maximoff.
* Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau:
The daughter of Air Force pilot Maria Rambeau and a captain in S.W.O.R.D., who introduces herself in the fictional ''WandaVision'' sitcom as "Geraldine". She has a "toughness and an ability to be a woman" in a male-dominated world. Head writer Jac Schaeffer's pitch for the series had a different character in Rambeau's role, but she was excited to use Rambeau instead when she became available for the series. Co-executive producer Mary Livanos added that Rambeau's inclusion was a discovery during development that became "really enriched in the show", as it allowed an empathetic character like Rambeau to become a "hero in her own right". The series shows what Rambeau has done since her introduction as a child looking up to her mother's friend and colleague Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel in '' Captain Marvel'' (2019), where she was portrayed by Akira Akbar. Parris used Akbar's performance as the starting point for her own, taking Rambeau's relationships with her mother and Danvers into account.
* Randall Park as Jimmy Woo:
An FBI agent working with S.W.O.R.D. who previously was the parole officer of Scott Lang / Ant-Man. Park felt introducing Woo using close-up magic, something he was trying to perfect in ''Ant-Man and the Wasp'' (2018), quickly showed the character's development since that film, indicating that he is getting better at multiple things and is being assigned to larger cases. Park was taught the magic trick by a magician and spent several days perfecting it for the series.
* Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis:
An astrophysicist working with S.W.O.R.D. who previously interned for Jane Foster and befriended Thor. Returning to the role for the first time since '' Thor: The Dark World'' (2013), Dennings felt Lewis would not have changed much as a person, but would be older and wiser after going to school to receive her doctorate in astrophysics. Additionally, Dennings felt the character has more confidence in herself now that she is viewed as "the boss" which she never was in the films.
* Evan Peters as Ralph Bohner:
A Westview resident under Agatha's control, posing as Maximoff's deceased twin brother Pietro, who was portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in prior MCU films. Schaeffer and Livanos were eager to bring Pietro back in the series, and decided to take advantage of its notions of "what's real and what's not, and performance, and casting, and audience, and fandom" by having the character be "recast" within the fictional ''WandaVision'' program. The casting of Peters was a reference to his role as Peter Maximoff in 20th Century Fox's ''X-Men'' film series. Schaeffer noted that this recasting worked for the series on a meta level by playing on the sitcom tropes of recasting characters without much fuss and also of having a relative arrive in town who "stirs things up" with the sitcom's family. Shakman said Peters' role in the series was a way to play with the audience's expectations in a similar way to Ben Kingsley playing Trevor Slattery in ''Iron Man 3'' (2013), in which that character poses as the Mandarin. Schaeffer likened Peters' performance to a mixture of the characters Jesse Katsopolis from ''Full House'', Nick Moore from ''Family Ties'', and Joey Tribbiani from ''Friends''.

Recurring residents of Westview include Asif Ali as Abilash Tandon who plays Vision's co-worker "Norm"; David Lengel as Harold Proctor who plays "Phil Jones"; Amos Glick as a pizza delivery man cast as "Dennis", the mailman/delivery man; Ithamar Enriquez and Victoria Blade as residents cast as the commercial man and woman actors; Emma Caulfield Ford as Sarah Proctor, Harold's wife who plays "Dottie Jones", a "skeptical mom who rules the neighborhood with an iron fist and poison smile"; and David Payton as John Collins who plays "Herb". Josh Stamberg also recurs as S.W.O.R.D. acting director Tyler Hayward, along with Alan Heckner and Selena Anduze as S.W.O.R.D. agents Monti and Rodriguez. Julian Hilliard and Jett Klyne portray Maximoff and Vision's sons Billy and Tommy, respectively.

Additional guest stars include Jolene Purdy as Isabel Matsueda who plays Maximoff and Vision's neighbor "Beverly"; frequent MCU stuntman Zac Henry as Franklin, a S.W.O.R.D. agent who becomes a beekeeper when he enters Maximoff's reality; Randy Oglesby as a Westview resident who plays "Stan Nielson", the town's doctor; Wesley Kimmel and Sydney Thomas as the boy and girl in the commercials; and Kate Forbes as Agatha's mother, Evanora Harkness. Ilana Kohanchi and Daniyar portray Maximoff's parents Iryna and Olek Maximoff, respectively, while Gabriel Gurevich plays a young version of her brother Pietro.

Episodes

Production

Development

By September 2018, Marvel Studios was developing several limited series for its parent company Disney's streaming service, Disney+, to be centered on supporting characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films who had not starred in their own films, such as Wanda Maximoff. Actors who portrayed the characters in the films were expected to reprise their roles for the limited series, including Elizabeth Olsen as Maximoff. The series for Disney+ were expected to be six to eight episodes each, have a "hefty udgetrivaling those of a major studio production", and be produced by Marvel Studios rather than Marvel Television, which produced previous MCU television series. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was believed to be taking a "hands-on role" in each limited series' development, focusing on "continuity of story" with the films and "handling" the actors who would be reprising their roles from the films. Brian Chapek, a creative executive at Marvel, began initial work on a Maximoff series before co-executive producer Mary Livanos joined the project in mid-2018 and took over the series' development. By the end of October, Paul Bettany's Vision was expected to play a significant role in the series, which would focus on the relationship between Maximoff and Vision. In the following months, the titles ''Vision and the Scarlet Witch'' and ''The Vision and Scarlet Witch'' were both reported.

Feige came up with the idea of having Maximoff and Vision living in a fantasy world of "suburban bliss", based on his love of sitcoms and how they can be used to escape from reality. When he was meeting with potential head writers for the series, some did not feel his proposed sitcom element would work. Jac Schaeffer, who was working on '' Black Widow'' (2021) at the time, heard the premise of the series and was excited by it. She had a meeting to pitch her ideas, and was hired as head writer in January 2019. Schaeffer was set to write the first episode and executive produce the series. That April, Disney and Marvel officially announced the series as ''WandaVision'', and Matt Shakman was hired to direct and serve as an executive producer in August. Feige also executive produces alongside Marvel Studios' Louis D'Esposito and Victoria Alonso. Rather than call the series ''Wanda and Vision'' or ''The Scarlet Witch and Vision'', Feige was inspired to use a compound title like ''WandaVision'' after seeing the title for the film ''BlacKkKlansman'' (2018), but he was hesitant about using it. Schaeffer insisted on using the title after hearing it, feeling it was perfect for the series. There was some backlash when the title was announced as it was perceived to be "the silliest title possible", but Schaeffer felt viewers would change their minds once they watched the series. Feige said the series would tell the story of Maximoff and Vision, show Maximoff's full abilities, explore who Vision is, and introduce Maximoff's comic book name "Scarlet Witch" to the MCU in ways that are fun, funny, and "somewhat scary". He added that the series would have repercussions for the rest of the MCU's Phase Four, but said viewers would not need to be familiar with the MCU to understand the series. He did think there would be a "wealth of rewards" for those who had already seen all the MCU films and knew the plans for Phase Four.

The series was described as part sitcom, part "Marvel epic" by Feige, "super avant-garde and weird" by Bettany, an action movie mixed with sitcoms by actor Teyonah Parris, and a combination of superhero action and "small-town sitcom silliness" by Livanos. Shakman was "uniquely equipped" to direct such a series because of his experience directing series like the psychological drama ''Mad Men'', the large-scale action series ''Game of Thrones'', and sitcoms like ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia''. Shakman also felt more qualified to make ''WandaVision'' since he was a child actor on 1980s sitcoms such as ''Just the Ten of Us''. The series totals approximately six hours of content across nine episodes, which vary from a half-hour comedy format to 50 minutes long. During development, the budget was reported to be as much as $25 million per episode.

Writing

Inception and structure

Much of the series takes place within a fictional sitcom called ''WandaVision''. Schaeffer received comics material and an outline of what Marvel Studios hoped to accomplish so she could help shape their ideas. Feige was visually inspired by Mike del Mundo's "Norman Rockwell meets '' Leave it to Beaver''" covers for the comic book series ''The Vision'' by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and pitched the series to Olsen and Bettany as a combination of that comic book and the "House of M" storyline by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel. Other inspiration was taken from the ''Scarlet Witch: Witches' Road'' trade paperback, the "Avengers Disassembled" storyline by Bendis and David Finch that preceded "House of M", the "Vision Quest" storyline from ''West Coast Avengers'' by John Byrne, and the comic book runs of ''The Vision and the Scarlet Witch'' by Bill Mantlo and Rick Leonardi, and by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell.

Feige, Schaeffer, Shakman, and Livanos dedicated themselves to "nail ngdown" the series' irreverent tone. Schaeffer was inspired by the MCU film '' Thor: Ragnarok'' (2017) and the Marvel Television X-Men series ''Legion'' (2017–19), believing those projects broke the mold of what Marvel stories could be and were daring, original, and "bananas". She felt they allowed ''WandaVision'' to also be unique and different, and noted that it would be the polar opposite to her work on ''Black Widow'' which focused on aggressive, visceral action. Schaeffer hired Gretchen Enders, Megan McDonnell, Bobak Esfarjani, Peter Cameron, Mackenzie Dohr, Chuck Hayward, Cameron Squires, and Laura Donney for the series' writers room, a grouping of half men, half women, and several people of color, because Schaeffer believed the varying perspectives would create better stories. Each writer had different areas of expertise that they brought to the series and were aided by Schaeffer's assistant Laura Monti and the general writers' assistant Clay Lapari. Staff writer McDonnell was eventually promoted to story editor. Many of the writers had previous television experience, unlike Schaeffer, which helped her with the initial challenge of crafting the limited series' long-form structure as well as each episode within that larger narrative. Schaeffer believed the story could never have been told with a film format because it needed to establish its sitcom reality with a true television aesthetic before that could be broken.

Schaeffer found the central idea of Maximoff being responsible for the sitcom reality to be a simple concept, and felt it would be more compelling if it was revealed through a mystery. This is done by showing Maximoff and Vision living in the sitcom reality for the first three episodes before the fourth episode retells those events from a real world perspective to provide answers for viewers. Schaeffer described this as starting in a "grounded" sitcom with '' Twilight Zone'' "fraying edges", followed by a bottle episode to explain the early events. How long the series remained in the sitcom reality before giving answers to viewers was a big concern for Schaeffer. Following the "enormous info dump" in the fourth episode, Schaeffer hoped the audience could experience the rest of the series as an "emotional and a psychological journey, rather than a sneaky mystery the whole way". She pitched the rest of the series as mixing sitcom and real world elements until the penultimate episode explores Maximoff's history and creation of the sitcom reality, concluding in a big finale with the spectacle of an MCU film. She compared the series to a multi-issue comic book and said it remained very close to her original pitch, which was structured to follow the five stages of grief by starting with denial and ending with acceptance. Ten episodes were originally planned, but this was reworked to nine episodes to improve the "rhythm". The episode titles come from phrases featured in promotions or the opening credits of television series.

Characters and universe

After receiving Marvel Studios' initial ideas for the series, Schaeffer helped figure out what they meant for the characters. Shakman and Schaeffer watched all the existing MCU footage of Maximoff and Vision, including footage that did not make it into the previous MCU films such as unused dailies. While exploring this footage, Schaeffer was drawn to mundane character moments such as Maximoff and Vision cooking paprikash in '' Captain America: Civil War'' (2016) and the two enjoying their time together in Scotland in '' Avengers: Infinity War'' (2018). Schaeffer said there was a wonder and sincerity to the pair, and felt their family dynamic within a sitcom setting would result in a calm, warm feeling despite the ridiculous premise of the series. She found the pair appealing because they are both outsiders who "find each other. They're both different with capital s."

''WandaVision'' begins three weeks after the events of '' Avengers: Endgame'' (2019), and is set in the fictional town of Westview, New Jersey, which was named as a reference to Feige's hometown of Westfield, New Jersey

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases