WandaVision Production Designer Mark Worthington Explains MCU Movie Influences

As the saying goes... "It's all connected." The Marvel Cinematic Universe launched its Phase 4 with WandaVision, a series which started as a sitcom starring two Avengers in different eras of television which has evolved into a reality-bending thriller. For production designer Mark Worthington, WandaVision has been one of the most exciting and ambitious endeavors of an already impressive and diverse resumé. Among the many details packed into the many era-based sets of WandaVision, Worthington was tasked with infusing references and details tied to previous Marvel Studios titles into the show's sets.

"I think the obvious thing is you go back and you look at the films in which Wanda and Vision appear," Worthington told ComicBook.com. Those movies, of course, are Captain America: The Winter Soldier (post-credits scene), Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. "That's where you start because then you're looking at their environments and the logic of their characters and their story arc. So, you're looking at that first. Obviously, you're looking at the details of the world, but again, there was no sort of absolute template for that. We have to work within a visual world, which coincides with the MCU, obviously. But it also has to be distinct, which I think the creatives at Marvel wanted. They don't want this to be a copy of anything they've done. They want it to be adjacent to it. They want it to be in a continuum with it which was great.

Worthington had already seen all of the Marvel titles from the Infinity Saga which ultimately lead to WandaVision, so he didn't rewatch the franchise as a whole but certainly picked some key moments and details to pay extra attention to. "I looked at maybe half of them again," he explains. " I don't think you want to go back and go, 'Oh, we got to have that detail or that.' You want it in your head while you're thinking about the design for this story, so that some of that is inevitable now. It's in your design DNA because you're really familiar with it."

As for the popular theories of the Infinity Stones (the six gems which powered the almighty Infinity Gauntlet wielded by Thanos) are influencing the sets; color schemes or other details of WandaVision, Worthington is chalking that up to coincidence. "That people are finding that is absolutely valid," he says. "I certainly didn't have it consciously in mind because I'm thinking more about our story, right? That they are finding it is fantastic. The mythology of these sorts of franchises build up over time, within what we consciously do and then what the fans see and then what becomes the mythology about those two things together. And I think that's what makes them fun. So that, it's almost like this Talmudic tradition, right? Where it's a constant reinterpretation of this idea from different points of view, and it's all valid and it's all very interesting."

Have you caught MCU references and Easter eggs in the sets of WandaVision? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram!

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