WandaVision is about to turn the MCU on its head come January 15, when the limited series debuts on the Disney+ streaming service. Though little is known about the actual plot, fans worldwide are ready for Wanda and Vision’s seemingly idyllic sitcom life to kickstart Phase 4.
The brain behind Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, spoke to Screen Rant about the development process behind the show and how it would bleed into the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward.
Kevin, this is the right way to kick off the MCU on Disney+. What a show! Pandemic related delays saw WandaVision debut before Black Widow. How did that change the MCU or affect the narrative at all for Phase 4?
Kevin Feige: It's a question I've obviously been asked a lot with good reason. And the other day, I said, "If this had happened a year or two before, we obviously wouldn't have had [it so easy]." We always adapt, is the truth. That's part of what storytelling and filmmaking is, is adjusting and adapting. But we would have had to change a heck of a lot more in the build up to Endgame than we've had to now.
The fact that WandaVision is before Black Widow and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, after you see all of them, I can tell you a couple of a tiny things [changed] here and there. But almost nothing, is the truth. The alternative is, often when you're thrown for a loop, you end up with something better. I don't want to say 2020 led to anything better, frankly, but the fact that WandaVision is the debut show is actually quite appropriate.
The show was always intended as an opportunity for us to play with the medium of television, and play with storytelling in a way we haven't done before, and I'm very happy and very proud that it turns out WandaVision is the debut of that. Because it's the boldest swing we've ever done, and something that could not ever have even been a movie. It actually only works as episodic.
How does the specific nature of a weekly release schedule for WandaVision and Disney+ content affect the creative side of story planning compared to the last 12 years of Marvel Studios?
Kevin Feige: It allows us to flex new muscles, different muscles, in a way that was perfect. I've been at Marvel for over 20 years, and it's evolved and changed drastically - as you know better than anyone - over those 20 years. It has always been for the better, and it has always been to tell new stories.
When people would ask about superhero fatigue in 2005, my answer was always, "As long as we keep making them unique." I don't want to just keep making superhero movies, I want to make all types of movies; I want to make all types of stories and shows. And that's what the MCU allows us to do. It happens to all be characters from the Marvel Universe, but people who've actually read the comics know, there's such a great diversity of storytelling and tone and genre in comics. We've been doing that as well, and that's what has kept it so remarkably exciting.
Standing on a sitcom set designed to look like the late 50s and early 60s, with a studio audience and with actual old cameras and lighting equipment from the era, was surreal to me and such a fun thing. Just like seeing all the X-Men in costume for the first time on the first Marvel film that I worked on it. All these different experiences happen to be able to fall under the umbrella of this cinematic universe.
Is the MCU still organized, going forward into the future, in phases?
Kevin Feige: So far, we announced much of Phase 4 a year and a half ago at Comic-Con, and that's what we've been [doing]. I think there's a sense of, when we announce a lot of things, people start going, "Okay, what's next, then?" Well, once we now announce something, we have to then go do it. We have to then go make it. And that's very much what we've been doing for that last year and a half, and we'll be doing for the next year and a half or two.
As the phases have expanded, certainly Phase 4 is bigger than any of the other ones. The number of years that it takes to complete a phase is essentially the same, between 3 to 4 years or so. The number of projects in those phases is growing, thanks to Disney Plus. So, that's where we're heading into this year, to see how audiences attract and follow along - or don't. Because believe it or not, there are people that just pop in, enjoy a movie or show, and pop out. And we make our shows and movies for them as well.
But [phases building to overarching sagas] seem like a nice - at least internally, for us the Marvel Studios - way to build stories for us.
At Disney Investor Day, you announced that Fantastic Four is happening. When will we see the X-Men?
Kevin Feige: You know how much I love the X-Men. I already said that's where I started. I can't tell you anything before we actually announced it, but rest assured, the discussions have been long and ongoing internally.
How long was this WandaVision series been in development, and what was the process like coming up with the story?
Kevin Feige: It's been almost three years now since we had a discussion with [Elizabeth] and Paul, I think during the junket of Infinity War, that we had this idea. Bob Iger had come to us and said they were doing a streaming service, they wanted us to start working on on programs for it, and this was one of the first ideas.
Mainly just because there was so much Wanda and Vision stories to tell, and we've only scratched the surface with that relationship. Also because Paul and Elizabeth are so spectacular, we knew they could carry anything, and we wanted to work with them more and see more of what they could bring to this world - which is which is an astounding amount.
We've had this idea of sitcoms, of tapping into this this love of sitcoms that a lot of us at Marvel Studios had. I spent much of my childhood watching television, watching Nick at Nite, and now MeTV. TCM or MeTV is what I flip between if I'm ever watching television. I sort of was delving into my own psyche of why is that the case, and what what is so comforting about these dated shows. And usually, the answer is the spectacular writing on The Dick Van Dyke Show, or the family connections of The Brady Bunch. The simplicity of how there's a problem at the beginning of the episode, and 30 minutes later, there's a solution and you move on. How comforting is that, and what would that mean to somebody who has gone through traumatic things, like all of us have and like the characters in our movies had.
And it wasn't until Mary Livanos, our executive producer, spoke with Jac Schaeffer -because you might imagine, we did have some meetings where people were like, "Marvel sitcoms? What are you guys talking about?" By the way, that's happened to us going back to pitching Iron Man to people. The list of people that have passed is very, very long on all of our projects, because it's hard to see something until you actually make it. Thankfully, Jac Schaeffer saw it, and was able to take a lot of the very high-level concepts we had and turn it into a structured narrative.
Then Matt Shakman, who between giant Game of Thrones episodes and growing up on sitcom sets as a child actor, was made to do this. I sort of couldn't believe it. We'd met with Matt a handful of times in the past after his big episodes to try to find something. I did not know about his sitcom past until he came in and pitched on this, and I think he might have brought pictures of some of his early work. I couldn't believe that here was a filmmaker that was destined, perhaps, to do this mashup.
How do you balance a busier Marvel Studio schedule going forward with your Star Wars project?
Kevin Feige: It's all stuff I love, and everything regarding Star Wars is not anywhere near talking about. So, it is Marvel. But if I wasn't being paid to do it, I would be doing it here in my basement just with my toys, and nobody would ever see it. It's what I think about all the time.