WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer explains show’s slow burn mystery

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

WandaVision has now premiered three episodes on Disney+ and it's fair to say that it's one of the most unique projects that the MCU has taken on. The series has been praised by critics that admire that quirky premise of having Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) play out their need for normalcy by living in a false reality based on classic sitcoms. Fans have complained a bit about the show's pacing, particularly feeling like the show is taking too long to move away from the false reality to what's really going on with the story. WandaVision currently has a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes while the audience score is 79%, which isn't bad necessarily, but you can tell that some fans aren't totally wowed by what they are seeing. During a recent interview with "The Hollywood Reporter", the creator of the series, Jac Schaeffer, detailed the pacing of the show was a major part of the conversation from start and why Marvel boss Kevin Feige wanted it to be a slow burn mystery.

"[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."

Schaeffer goes on to say that Feige really wanted to go all-in with the "sitcommy" aspects of the early episodes, particularly having the pilot be entirely in black-and-white and having a laugh track. The goal was to make it feel like it was right out of an episode of Bewitched and Feige really wanted to play chicken with the audience as the tone changes as the show moves along:

"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."

Episode three of WandaVision has seemed to turn some of the fan reactions in a more positive direction. I won't give anything away here but the episode certainly moved things along a bit and put an interesting spotlight on Wanda herself. Schaeffer goes on to promise that fans who pay attention to all the smaller details will definitely 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."

I'm all about the slow burn and don't necessarily need instant gratification for a series to work for me. So far, I'm enjoying WandaVision and give Marvel credit for really tackling something different while also expanding on its growing universe. It would be easy for them to just stick to the formula that has worked since 2008 but their ability to take some chances also shows that they're growing creatively as well.

Have YOU been enjoying WandaVision?