#Why Kevin Feige Wanted WandaVision to Be a Slow Burn Mystery That Slowly Unfolds

After a long wait, WandaVision is finally out. While the quirky premise of the show, where Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch and Vision play out their desire for normalcy by living in a false reality based on old-timey sitcoms, has been praised by critics, fans are complaining that the show is taking too long to move away from the false reality to the meat of the story. In a recent interview for THR, the creator of the show, Jac Schaeffer, explained that the pace at which the plot moves had been a major part of the conversation around the show from the start.

“[The pacing] was always a question. It was mapped out pretty thoroughly early on. When I first got the job I reached out for advice, and a lot of the people that I spoke to were like, ‘The pilot is so important because you’re finding the voices and you’re finding the story,’ and that just does not apply to us. Because that’s not what that is. Obviously, these characters have existed, so much of the mythology exists, and it was all mapped out like a feature.”

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MCU showrunner Kevin Feige had previously stated that WandaVision was a tribute to the shows he had grown up watching, from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Nick at Nite. The first episode of WandaVision was entirely black-and-white, complete with a laugh track and antics that seemed straight out of an episode of Bewitched. According to Schaeffer, Feige favored going all-in on the “sitcommy” conceit of WandaVision in the first few episodes.

“To [Kevin’s] credit – and it’s one of the reasons that I love working for him – he referred to it as ‘playing chicken with the audience’ (laughs). He really wanted to see how long we could hang onto it, and there was a lot of discussion about how long we could hang onto black-and-white because we knew we would go to color. That was always a piece that’s involved in the larger story. So it was really wonderful that he allowed us to really sink into the sitcom and to really delay the gratification.”

Now that the third episode of WandaVision has been released, it is becoming increasingly clear that the perfect world that Wanda has created for herself and Vision is beginning to fall apart. Although the mystery is not unfolding fast enough to satisfy fans right now, Schaeffer promises that those who pay attention to the smaller details will be rewarded in the end.

“When we were putting the show together, we knew sort of what a lot of the really big moments would be, and they’re mapped out. I wanted to start small. Kevin was 100% in for doling it out slowly. And I think he also has a lot of faith in the fans and the Marvel audience, that they’re so interested in paying attention and they know they’ll be rewarded, so we started out slow.”

Written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, and Kathryn Hahn as Agnes. New episodes air Fridays on Disney+. Check out the entire interview over at The Hollywood Reporter.

Topics: WandaVision