Iron Man 3 screenwriter Drew Pearce suspects Marvel Studios will use Disney+ series WandaVision to introduce mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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“I would definitely not be surprised if WandaVision is the way they start to bring in, for example, mutants,” Pearce told Collider when talk turned to Disney’s streaming service, future home to multiple MCU-set series intertwined with the movie side of the Kevin Feige-steered franchise.
Beyond WandaVision — reuniting Avengers stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany as Scarlet Witch and Vision, respectively — Marvel Studios will launch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, spinning out of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame with Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, Hawkeye with Jeremy Renner and Loki with Tom Hiddleston back as the time-traveling trickster demigod.
Set some time after Endgame, WandaVision will act as a direct tie-in to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where Olsen joins Benedict Cumberbatch in what has been described as the MCU’s first scary movie.
Though Feige made no mention of WandaVision incorporating mutants during Marvel’s Phase 4 unveiling at San Diego Comic-Con — Feige only referenced recently acquired properties X-Men and Fantastic Four when saying there wasn’t enough time to discuss mutants or Marvel’s first family — Scarlet Witch is a character with deep ties to X-Men lore.
In the Marvel Comics, Scarlet Witch was originally depicted as a mutant and once transformed the Marvel Universe into a reality where Homo superior ruled supreme after her fantasized domestic life — where she started an idyllic family with lover Vision — was ripped away. Scarlet Witch later famously uttered “no more mutants” when ending the House of M event, causing the mass de-powering of much of the world’s mutant population.
Feige has not hinted how the MCU will handle its approach to mutants. In an April interview following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in March, Feige said the X-Men won’t enter the MCU for “a very long time.”
“It’ll be a while. It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set,” Feige said of the then-unannounced Phase 4, which includes Black Widow, Eternals and Shang-Chi.
“So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”
That comment seems to rule out the long-in-the-works WandaVision involving mutants, at least in any extensive capacity; but as theorized by ComicBook.com, the six-episode series could lay the groundwork for an MCU spin on House of M or, in the future, do the heavy-lifting to integrate mutants in an MCU where they’ve yet to be seen or mentioned.
Marvel’s Disney+ series will “intersect with the movies in a very big way,” opening up a “totally new form of storytelling that we get to play with and explore,” Feige previously told Variety.
“It’s the first long-form narrative that Marvel Studios has done — they’ll be six episodes, eight episodes, 10 episodes with the actors from the films playing their characters. They’ll be changing, evolving, growing in those event series and then those changes will be reflected in their next film appearances.”
WandaVision premieres on Disney+ in Spring 2021.