WandaVision‘s cast and creative team are still doing some post-show clean-up following the series finale. The end of WandaVision set up some exciting things for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while at the same time disappointing fans when it came to a lot of their long-running theories. One of the more curious story threads in WandaVision was no doubt the “birth” of Wanda and Vision’s twin boys, Billy and Tommy, who become the Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed (respectively) in Marvel Comics lore. WandaVision has already given Billy and Tommy their superpowers, but director Matt Shakman is now addressing why the show didn’t age the boys up to their Young Avengers prime.
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Speaking to ET, Matt Shakman explains that WandaVision’s early gimmick of having Billy and Tommy go through a rapid conception, birth, and childhood aging process was never meant to be taken to the point of having the boys reach the Young Avengers ages of Wiccan and Speed:
“No, we wanted to keep them at that age,” Shakman says. “Wanda has obviously missed out on the first 10 years of their life [which] went by really fast, so we didn’t want to deprive her of even more time with them.”
In addition to the conceptual idea that Wanda wouldn’t want to miss out on too much time being a mother to her boys, Shakman says there was a practical reason not to do it: giving child actors Julian Hilliard (Billy) and Jett Klyne (Tommy) enough time to shine in the show:
“Once we got to know them, we had so little screen time with 10-year-old Billy and Tommy that we wanted to take advantage of what we did have to get to know them really well as people. There’s so much innocence there. To have them age up one more time, I think, would have been unfair to those actors and those characters.”
You can’t blame Shakman for leaning that way: as a former child actor (Just the Ten of Us, Webster, Growing Pains) he wanted the boys to have a full opportunity:
“I’m deeply empathetic having gone through the experience — I know how it feels — and so I try to make it as fun and as comfortable as possible. I remember how I felt around directors that I admired and the tone that they created when I was a kid, and I want to try to create a similar tone.”
Of course, Shakman and the WandaVision writer Jac Schaeffer leave the door open for Tommy and Billy to still fulfill their Young Avengers destinies. The boys were erased from existence along with Vision when Wanda finally came to terms with her grief and took down her Hex bubble world.
However, the WandaVision post-credits scene revealed Billy and Tommy somehow still calling out to Wanda for help, as the Scarlet Witch continues experimenting with her Chaos Magic via the Darkhold book. There have been indications that Julian Hilliard and Jett Klyne could show up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, so it will be interesting to see how their story evolves there.
More: Matt Shakman Answeres WandaVision’s Major Fan Theories
WandaVision is now streaming on Disney+.
