Agatha All Along Showrunner, Cast Reveals Influence of Pop Culture Witches on Marvel Series

As pairings go, there are few things more iconic than pop culture and witches. From The Wizard of Oz to Practical Magic to even the witchy vibes of Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and more, witches are a mainstay of entertainment and it’s those enduring themes — and vibes — that Agatha All Along is going to tap into when the series debuts on Disney+ on September 18th. Speaking with EW, series showrunner Jac Schaefer as well as the cast broke down the references to and influences of those witches in the upcoming series.

“We’re a little squirrelly with it,” Schaefer said about how the show incorporates the inspiration of pop culture witches. “We take some liberties”.

Some of the elements of inspiration have already revealed themselves in images and trailers for Agatha All Along — a recently released teaser in particular contained some nods to Wizard of Oz but even the look and feel of the Witches’ Road that fans have seen thus far have been very Wizard of Oz-esque, like a darker alternative to the iconic Yellow Brick Road. Photos from the series have also given audiences glimpses Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) and her coven in a ’70s style band not unlike Fleetwood Mac.

“We’re in ‘Season of the Witch’ and that kind of thing,” Schaeffer said. “It doesn’t have that same abundantly clear thread, but it was our system to be able to pull that fun in to the show.”

Joe Locke, who plays the mysterious Teen in the series, explained how the set design also contributed to things.

“There’s so much detail in every set,” he said. “Even the fact that it’s a five-sided room. It is not a musical, but music is definitely another texture to it.”

WandaVision‘s Iconic Television References Helped Create the Structure for Agatha All Along

The idea that Agatha All Along is using references and inspiration from iconic pop culture witches continues a theme that was started in WandaVision. That series saw a grief-stricken Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) ensnare the town of Westview in a spell that saw reality shift thematically to match Wanda’s favorite television sitcoms through history, which led to references to such icons as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, and many more. According to Schaeffer, they wanted to continue the concept in Agatha All Along, just in a different way.

“With this one, I, of course, wanted to use a similar mechanism and involve pastiche in a similar way because it was so satisfying in [WandaVision] and so fun creatively, but we couldn’t just duplicate it,” Schaeffer said. “This system casts a wider net. The world building expands. The first idea was that they would have these trials as witches. In the early days, the tests were sort of like, there’s a fire trial, there’s a water trial. But then, how do we get the illusions in there? How do we get the pop culture in there? Real talk: How do we get the wardrobe and the production design in there? So, that was the trick and the guiding light.”

But it’s also not just pop culture witches and witchcraft vibes that the series will lean into. Agatha All Along is also leaning into retro horror to an extent, as was the case in a recent teaser for the series as well as some of the recently released posters. The horror aspect of Agatha All Along also has a major place, with Marvel Television head Brand Winderbaum explaining while the MCU isn’t treating horror as a genre, they are letting creators dig into darker stories.

“I think that it goes back to the filmmaker’s intent,” Winderbaum said in a recent interview. “The horror on screen in Agatha is going to be different than the horror on screen in Marvel Zombies, is going to be different than the horror on screen in Blade. It was different than the horror on screen in Moon Knight. It really depends on the vision of the filmmaker on what horror cues you’re pulling from. And that’s not just unique to horror. It’s unique to any genre we’re playing with. Obviously, there’s many different ways to tell a story.”

Agatha All Along debuts on Disney+ September 18th.