50 Fun Facts About WandaVision

In WandaVision, the sitcom town of Westview is in which US state?

New Jersey: Westview borrows from producer Kevin Feige's hometown of Westfield, New Jersey, with the name tweaked so that its initials are W and V, for Wanda and Vision.

Who created WandaVision and served as its head writer?

Jac Schaeffer was writing Black Widow when she heard of the sitcom idea, which other candidates had doubted could work; she asked to pitch and was hired as head writer in January 2019.

Who directed every episode of WandaVision?

Matt Shakman knew the form from the inside: as a child in the 1980s he acted in sitcoms, including three seasons on Just the Ten of Us, long before he directed Game of Thrones.

WandaVision is set how long after the events of Avengers: Endgame?

Three weeks: the clock is set by Monica Rambeau, who is restored when the Avengers undo the Blip in Endgame and goes back to work three weeks later, on the day she is sent to Westview.

Which actress plays the nosy neighbour "Agnes" in WandaVision?

Kathryn Hahn has called the bond between her character and Wanda "an Amadeus-Salieri relationship": a rival who has studied magic for centuries, maddened to see it come so easily to someone else.

Under what alias does Monica Rambeau first appear inside WandaVision's sitcom reality?

Geraldine was supposed to hide who she was until episode four, but Marvel had already announced Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau in 2019, so viewers were ahead of the twist.

Darcy Lewis returns to the MCU in WandaVision for the first time since which film?

Thor: The Dark World was eight years earlier; since then Darcy has gone from Jane Foster's intern to a doctor of astrophysics, called in as the expert who finds the sitcom's broadcast signal.

Before WandaVision, Jimmy Woo was what to Scott Lang in Ant-Man and the Wasp?

His parole officer, who struggled with close-up magic in that film; in WandaVision he introduces himself with a flawless card trick, which Randall Park learned from a magician in a couple of days.

In the WandaVision finale, what is the "real name" of the man Evan Peters plays?

Ralph Bohner is no comics character but a Westview actor Agatha had put under her spell; his surname is widely read as a wink at "Boner", the best friend in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains.

Who played Pietro Maximoff in the MCU films before WandaVision "recast" him?

Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Pietro died in Avengers: Age of Ultron; the series brings him back with another actor's face, a joke on the sitcom habit of recasting a role without explanation.

Which agency, new to the MCU in WandaVision, secretly rebuilds Vision's body as a weapon?

S.W.O.R.D. changed its name for the screen: the comics' Sentient World Observation and Response Department became the Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division, a hint at its plans for Vision.

Which film's title inspired Kevin Feige to give WandaVision its mashed-up name?

BlacKkKlansman caught Kevin Feige's eye on a board listing the year's top ten films at a 2018 AFI lunch: "They just mushed those two words together," he said, and he has since thanked Spike Lee.

WandaVision was planned as ten episodes, so why did it end up with nine?

Two were merged for pacing: the director says they collapsed a couple "just to make the rhythm work better", and the pandemic shutdown, long as it was, did not change the story.

WandaVision's head writer mapped her original pitch onto which framework?

The five stages of grief were the map of her pitch: each sitcom era was tied to a stage, starting in denial, with the finale always "ramping toward acceptance".

Which comic storyline did Marvel pair with Tom King's Vision series when pitching WandaVision to its stars?

House of M was half of the mash-up pitched to Paul Bettany, at a meeting he walked into expecting to be fired: his contract was up and his character had just died twice in Infinity War.

Which Marvel hero was originally going to appear in the WandaVision finale before being written out?

Doctor Strange was dropped, Kevin Feige said, because his arrival "would have taken away from Wanda"; an earlier plan even hid him in a fake commercial as a pharmacist.

Which sitcom star did WandaVision's makers consult over lunch about making a 1960s-style sitcom?

Dick Van Dyke met them at Disneyland's private Club 33 in August 2019 and passed on his own show's governing rule: "If it couldn't happen in real life, it can't happen on the show."

WandaVision gives knowing nods to which sitcom that starred Elizabeth Olsen's older sisters?

Full House made Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen famous as baby Michelle; asked if the homage was too close to home, the director said they took care never to reference one show exclusively in any era.

Which thought experiment do the two Visions debate in the WandaVision finale?

The Ship of Theseus asks whether a ship rebuilt plank by plank is still the same ship; Wanda's Vision uses it to make his rebuilt white double question who he is, then restores his memories.

How was WandaVision's first episode filmed to mimic 1950s sitcom production?

Before a live studio audience, over two days in black and white; Elizabeth Olsen called it nerve-racking, all adrenaline and quick changes, and was grateful when later episodes put the fourth wall back.

WandaVision wrapped in Atlanta just before the 2020 pandemic shutdown; in which city did the shoot resume that autumn?

Los Angeles: the crew had only just moved there to shoot on studio backlots when the pandemic stopped everything, two weeks after the Atlanta wrap party, and they could not return for six months.

WandaVision put Wanda and Vision's home on a backlot street that also held the house from which 1960s sitcom?

Bewitched's house stood on Blondie Street, a studio backlot where the director skateboarded on lunch breaks as a child actor; he wanted Wanda's home "among the ghosts of sitcoms past".

To recreate seven different eras, WandaVision's cinematographer used 47 different what?

Camera lenses: Jess Hall tested real 1950s glass, then modified modern lenses to copy the period quirks he liked, so that every era could be shot on the same digital cameras.

What did WandaVision's crew make 22 of so that two eras could be filmed in a single day?

Wigs: with scenes shot out of order, the head of the hair team said they "couldn't use anybody's hair" and could instead "just pop a wig on and off" between decades.

In WandaVision's 1693 Salem flashback, who leads the coven that tries to execute Agatha?

Her mother, Evanora, heads the coven of real witches that condemns Agatha for practising dark magic; instead of dying, she drains the life from every one of them.

Which item, worn by Agnes week after week in WandaVision, was the costume team's hint that she was really Agatha?

A brooch was the planted clue, along with her classic witch costume at Halloween; the hair and make-up team say her perms and lipstick hid no such Easter eggs.

WandaVision's main title sequence renders television pixels in what shape?

Hexagons stand for Wanda's hex powers and for "the Hex", Darcy's nickname for the bubble around Westview; the sequence ends with one red pixel breaking the pattern and two wedding rings still joined.

Who composed the score for WandaVision?

Christophe Beck wrote one set of themes and restyled them for each sitcom era; the task he relished most was a definitive theme for Wanda, heard over every episode's end credits.

Which songwriting duo wrote WandaVision's era-by-era theme songs?

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, the married pair behind Frozen's songs, said yes without having to think about it when the director, an old college friend of his, pitched the idea.

WandaVision's theme songs hide a four-note motif built on a tritone, an interval nicknamed what?

The devil's interval follows a bright octave in the motif, sung to the word "WandaVision" in every theme; the writers called it their way of saying the show is a big, bright swing that is also unsettling.

Which WandaVision theme song went viral and won a Primetime Emmy?

Agatha All Along was written in the ghoulish style of the Munsters and Addams Family themes, with the actress who plays Agatha singing lead herself and one of its writers among her backing singers.

Which decade did WandaVision's songwriters find hardest to write a theme song for?

The 1990s: both were at college for those years, without access to a television, so it was the one era of sitcom themes they had to go back and research.

After a two-episode premiere in January 2021, WandaVision went weekly, a model borrowed from which earlier Disney+ series?

The Mandalorian had shown that a weekly wait keeps viewers guessing; Marvel first meant to open with three episodes, then cut that to two so the finale would be finished in time.

WandaVision kicked off which numbered MCU era?

Phase Four was not meant to start this way: another Marvel series had been slated for August 2020, and only the pandemic's delays left WandaVision to open the new era.

Which Disney+ series premiere overtook WandaVision's opening-weekend record in March 2021?

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had been due first, in August 2020, until the pandemic held it up; arriving two weeks after WandaVision ended, it took the record, though Disney released no figures.

For 2021, WandaVision topped which unwelcome year-end chart?

Most-pirated TV series, on the piracy news site TorrentFreak's count of torrent downloads; it tracks single episodes, which works against shows released all at once, so Squid Game missed the top ten.

Roughly how many visual effects shots does WandaVision contain?

About 3,000: its 3,010 shots outnumber those in Avengers: Endgame, though the effects supervisor points out that the series runs far longer and that the film's shots were often more complex.

In WandaVision, what colour is Agatha's magic, as distinct from Wanda's red?

Purple, with a black, ink-like texture: the effects team wanted something sinister that seemed to pull in the dark energy of the world around her, set against Wanda's red.

What did Paul Bettany wear instead of ear prosthetics to play Vision in WandaVision?

A bald cap and face makeup: he asked to lose the headpiece that covered his ears so he could hear on set, and for the black-and-white episodes the makeup was blue, which gave the right grey on camera.

In WandaVision, a government agent who sneaks into Westview through the sewers emerges dressed as what?

A beekeeper: Wanda's spell turns his hazmat suit into a beekeeping outfit, and when she sees him climb out of a manhole she simply rewinds the scene to before he appeared.

WandaVision's director felt a "spiritual connection" to which two 1998 films?

Pleasantville and The Truman Show both trap their heroes inside a too-perfect television world; the series' prop designer, who made Thor's hammer and Cap's shield, had also worked on Pleasantville.

In WandaVision, what had Vision bought for the two of them, with a note saying "To grow old in"?

A plot of land in Westview: its deed carries a red heart and his note, and when Wanda stands on the empty lot her anguish builds the house, a new Vision and the whole sitcom town.

What are the names of Wanda and Vision's twin sons in WandaVision?

Billy and Tommy grow from babies to ten-year-olds in a single episode, but the director stopped there: ageing them into their teenage comic-book selves, Wiccan and Speed, would have cost Wanda time with them.

In the WandaVision finale, Agatha says Wanda's power exceeds that of which figure?

The Sorcerer Supreme is outmatched, Agatha tells her, citing a prophecy that makes the Scarlet Witch a harbinger of chaos whose destiny is to destroy the world.

How does Wanda finally neutralise Agatha's magic in the WandaVision finale?

Protective runes on the town's borders turn Agatha's own lesson against her: she had shown Wanda that inside such runes only the witch who cast them can use magic.

In WandaVision's final scene, which book is Wanda studying in a remote mountain cabin?

The Darkhold, which Agatha calls the book of the damned, is being read by Wanda's astral double while her everyday self makes tea; then she hears her vanished sons crying for help.

Agatha Harkness first appeared in the comics as a governess in which superhero team's series?

Fantastic Four #94 introduced her as governess to young Franklin Richards; only later did the comics make her the Scarlet Witch's tutor in witchcraft.

In WandaVision, what is the name of the family dog that Agatha gleefully admits to killing?

Sparky turns up in the 1980s episode and is soon found dead by the nosy neighbour; two episodes later she owns up, cheerfully, to having killed him herself.

Who returns as Ultron in VisionQuest, the 2026 series that follows Vision after WandaVision?

James Spader first voiced Ultron, the AI that created Vision and was destroyed by him, in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015; he and Paul Bettany unveiled the new series' first trailer together at Disney's D23 event.

Which science-fiction writers' prize did WandaVision's first season win in 2022?

A Nebula Award: the Ray Bradbury prize for dramatic presentation went to the season's nine credited writers, while at the Hugo Awards the same year the series was only a finalist.