WandaVision Stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany Say Their Disney+ Series Is Unlike Anything Marvel Studios Has Done

Marvel Studios’ WandaVision is “something unlike any other Marvel film yet,” says star Elizabeth Olsen. The Avengers star reprises her role as Wanda Maximoff alongside repeat Marvel star Paul Bettany — back as Wanda’s lover, synthetic android the Vision — who adds the “really experimental” series is one that delivers on the same level of blockbuster action expected of Marvel’s big screen productions.

“It’s gonna be whacky, and wild, and something unlike any other Marvel film yet,” Olsen told Extra Butter at Disney’s bi-annual D23 Expo. Added Bettany, “I think the reason that [Marvel Studios president] Kevin [Feige] was really interested in doing it was to really push the boundaries. And what we’re about to do is really avant-garde, really experimental, and really just crazy and messed up. And then it just becomes a huge action movie at the end. So I think you’re all gonna love it.”

Feige earlier said WandaVision and the other crop of television series coming to Disney streaming service Disney+ — including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Loki, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk and Moon Knight, all planned as part of Marvel’s Phase 4 alongside animated series What If…? — will be as cinematic as their theatrically released counterparts. WandaVision, in particular, will feed directly into Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, reaching theaters in May 2021.

“These episodes will intersect with the movies in a very big way. It’s a totally new form of storytelling that we get to play with and explore,” Feige told Variety at San Diego Comic-Con in July. “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.”

Showrunner Jac Schaeffer also promised the big-budget WandaVision delivers on blockbuster-level action.

“I mean, first of all, with Marvel doing Disney+, it’s not at all the small screen, you know? It’s still the big screen, but streaming,” Schaeffer previously shared with Variety. “And so there’s still the same sense of grandeur and the same scope and the same opportunities and the same resources, so it just really feels like an enormous movie. We say it’s like a run of a comic, which is just really exciting to do.”

Olsen and Bettany are joined by returning Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Randall Park (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and Kat Dennings (Thor) alongside franchise newcomers Kathryn Hahn (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Teyonah Parris (If Beale Street Could Talk), the latter playing a grown-up Monica Rambeau from Captain Marvel.

Disney+ launches November 12. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier begins streaming fall 2020, ahead of the spring 2021 debuts of WandaVision and Loki; What If…? follows in summer 2021 ahead of the fall 2021 release of Hawkeye.