WandaVision Is a “Seamless Continuation” of Marvel Studios Movies

WandaVision star Paul Bettany calls the first television series from Marvel Studios a “seamless continuation” of the 23-movie Marvel Cinematic Universe, saying the Disney+ original series “cut no corners” on spending and production quality. Part of the Kevin Feige-led studio’s TV takeover that’s seeing Disney dish out upwards of $25 million per episode for its cinematic-quality episodic television shows — including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and Hawkeye — WandaVision spared no expense. Because the movie and television sides of Marvel Studios will interlink, telling small screen stories that tie into its big-screen features, the studio’s TV efforts had to be almost indistinguishable from their big-budget blockbusters:

“I can tell you that there is no difference in production values. It feels very much like every Marvel movie that I’ve been involved in,” Bettany told this month’s Emmy Magazine covered by WandaVision. “It’s a seamless continuation.”

As companies like Disney invest more in streaming to engage audiences watching from home, the Iron Man and Avengers star said, “The blurring of the line between television and cinema is going to happen whether we like it or not, so it’s really exciting to be providing a product that has absolutely cut no corners.”

Viewers might see little visual difference between the Disney+ shows and the Marvel movies, but Feige wants to bring at-home audiences an experience they can’t get in movies — like an expensive Marvel Studios movie split into six parts.

“Streaming is 100 percent the future and where consumers want to watch things,” Feige told the magazine. “And hopefully they’ll want to watch our long-form narrative series. An experience like WandaVision is something you can’t get in a movie. You go to movies for things you can’t get on streaming, and you go to streaming for things you can’t get in a theater. And of course, everything in a theater goes to streaming eventually.”

WandaVision launches Phase Four of the MCU, which will roll out an unprecedented 10 titles between movies and television throughout 2021, including features Black Widow and Spider-Man 3. On Disney+, Marvel’s many fans will see the returns of movie stars Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), Vision (Bettany), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), to name a few.

Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Teyonah Parris, Kat Dennings, Randall Park, and Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision starts streaming only on Disney+ on January 15, 2021.