USA TODAY International Edition
‘ WandaVision’ tours sitcom history
The Avengers have dealt with cosmic supervillain Thanos. How bad could a live studio audience be?
Heroic witch Wanda Maximoff ( Elizabeth Olsen) and her android love Vision ( Paul Bettany) are hurdled through decades of TV sitcom history in “WandaVision” ( premiering Friday), the first of several Disney+ streaming series ( beginning Friday) expanding the bigscreen Marvel Cinematic Universe. Olsen and Bettany were at ground zero for this new evolution, taping the first “Dick Van Dyke Show”- inspired episode of “Wandavision” in front of a crowd.
Olsen confesses to being “terrified” beforehand. “I was really thinking back in my head, ‘ Yeah, but if we really mess up, we’ll get to do it again.’ ” And Bettany says he was also “really resistant. I tried to get out of it.” But by the time the audience was laughing, however, “we all felt fearless after having made that tonal decision and leap into the unknown.”
“WandaVision” drops its main characters in seemingly idyllic, black- andwhite 1950s suburban Westview. Vision goes to work ( though doesn’t exactly know what he does), Wanda is a magical housewife, and they have a kooky nosy neighbor named Agnes ( Kathryn Hahn) as each episode – complete with faux commercials – hits a different era of TV comedy, from “Bewitched” and “The Brady Bunch” to “Family Ties” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”
“We aren’t trying to satirize or parody the sitcoms. We’re trying to authentically re- create them, even as absurd as ‘ The Brady Bunch’ is,” Olsen says.
“They decide to just take it on the chin and go along with it,” Bettany adds of the main couple. “As they start through the American century at breakneck speed through different sitcoms, Vision is the first to go, ‘ Wait a second. There’s something wrong about this town. This can’t be right.’ So he starts to investigate and the audience comes along with him.”
It wouldn’t be a Marvel project if everything was normal. Both Wanda and Vision notice strange things arise in their retro life hinting at the slow- burn mystery that’s “completely connected to Wanda and Vision and how we know them,” Olsen teases.
The show also finally puts the spotlight on these two characters after years of playing supporting roles to more high- profile personas including Chris Evans’ Captain America and Robert Downey Jr.’ s Tony Stark in the blockbuster Marvel movies.
Bettany has been in the MCU from the beginning, first as the voice of Stark’s helpful AI J. A. R. V. I. S. in 2008’ s “Iron Man” and then, under a whole lot of makeup, as the powerful Vision in 2015’ s “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” That film also featured Wanda’s first appearance, initially as a vengeful antagonist
and later as a reluctant hero. There’s even a moment where a flying Vision swoops in to save Wanda, with a look between them that acts as an easter egg to their romance in the comic books and a tease of their relationship to come in the movies.
“We did that because we knew if we got the chance, we’d love to keep building on that,” says “WandaVision” producer and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige.
After being introduced as “this omnipotent but totally naive being,” Vision became ironically one of the Avengers’ most human characters, Bettany says. “And now we just throw in a little Dick
Van Dyke and Bryan Cranston. That was the special sauce.” The British actor grew up watching American sitcoms, so he can appreciate such throwback “WandaVision” story lines as Wanda needing to cook a last- minute dinner for Vision’s boss or her out- of- nowhere pregnancy followed inexplicably by a 3week- old baby. “It feels so accurate. And also, I look like I went back in time in a DeLorean and wrestled Robert Redford to the ground, shaved his head and stuck it on mine.”
Olsen, whose Wanda showcases many different sides as well in the series, was inspired by the likes of classic sitcom actresses Elizabeth Montgomery
and Mary Tyler Moore as well as “Modern Family” star Julie Bowen in being “this straight, serious character and the husband is the one freaking out all the time,” she says. “There’s a lot of that dynamic consistent as a trope through our sitcoms.”
“WandaVision” kicks off a sizable slate of Disney+ shows that will tie into the growing MCU. The first salvo is centered on recognizable faces: “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” ( premiering March 12) features Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s title superheroes, and “Loki” ( May) returns Tom Hiddleston’s trickster god. They “all had amazing moments and story lines in the movies, but we weren’t able to focus as much time as we thought those characters deserved,” Feige says.
“WandaVision” might be seen as a risk but Bettany reminds that, in retrospect, Marvel casting Downey as Iron Man was “a maverick decision that paid off. They have usually being rewarded by taking big swings.” The show also happens to be essential fan viewing: It ties directly into the upcoming Marvel sequel “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ( in theaters March 25, 2022).
“It would be foolish to pretend that the barrier between film and television isn’t getting less and less tangible with every year,” Bettany says. “We’re going to have a Marvel Cinematic Universe that moves through ( both) with ease and a multimedia platform now for telling these stories. And that is really cutting edge of them.”