The Unexpected Way Marvel Came Up With The Idea For WandaVision

Following Avengers: Endgame was always going to be a Giant-Man-sized order. Marvel originally lined up a slate of solo adventures and ensemble blockbusters that were scheduled to hit movie theaters in 2020, 2021, and 2022 — starting with Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and The Eternals. But even the combined forces of Disney and Marvel can't bend the universe — or a global pandemic — to their will. So in an appropriately 2020 left-field twist, the first Marvel venture post-Endgame will also be its quirkiest yet.

Scarlet Witch won't ever get her own movie, but she's landed her own TV series. WandaVision reunites Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) for a show that looks more like a '50s sitcom than a 21st-century superhero movie. The WandaVision trailer released in September doesn't offer many more details than that, let alone explain how it is that Vision is back in the flesh (sort of) after being wiped out not once but twice during the battles against Thanos (Josh Brolin).

This secrecy isn't surprising. Marvel and Disney are famous for being tight-lipped about their projects. Olsen even admitted to Jimmy Kimmel in October 2019 that she originally thought the meeting in which Marvel president Kevin Feige told her about WandaVision had been set up because she "got in trouble saying something about Infinity War." But instead, Feige was excited to share his idea for a new project — and the way he came up with it is pretty relatable. 

Here's the unexpected way Marvel came up with the idea for WandaVision.

One of the reasons Marvel movies have proven so popular is because they provide an escape to a world similar to our own that has some very cool differences. Normal-looking students, billionaires, soldiers, and scientists can wake up with super-powers or high-tech suits, and good always triumphs over evil (even if it takes a few movies to get there, and good people die along the way).

That's where Marvel fans get their escapism — but where does the mastermind behind Marvel gets his from a much different source. Feige told Entertainment Weekly for the outlet's WandaVision cover story that he would (and still does) watch sitcom reruns while getting ready to go to work every morning, and the shows stuck with him while he was working on the most recent batch of MCU movies. A "self-professed sitcom nerd," Feige was inspired by these sitcoms and came up with the idea for WandaVision. 

"I would get ready for the day and watch some old sitcom because I couldn't take the news anymore. Getting ready to go to set over the last few years, I kept thinking of how influential these programs were on our society and on myself, and how certainly I was using it as an escape from reality where things could be tied up in a nice bow in 30 minutes," Feige explained. 

That said, WandaVision won't follow the 30-minute format. The series is lined up for six hour-long episodes, set to premiere sometime in December, a few months ahead of schedule. Still, it will be a welcome escape and journey back to the MCU. Plus, Scarlet Witch's comic book storylines were how Kevin Feige convinced Elizabeth Olsen to say 'yes' to WandaVision, so things are looking good.