WandaVision Director Defends Week-to-Week Release Schedule: “It’s Worked Really Well For The Mandalorian”

WandaVision director Matt Shakman says a weekly release schedule “feels right” for the Marvel Studios series inspired by decades of classic sitcoms, adding that new episodes premiering week-to-week “worked really well for The Mandalorian.” Marvel chief creative officer Kevin Feige was the first to reveal how the first live-action Star Wars series, which released just its premiere episode when Disney+ launched in November 2019, inspired the marketing and strategy behind WandaVision. Unlike the binge-it-all approach at competitor Netflix, Marvel instead opted to let the mind-boggling mystery behind its nine-episode WandaVision unfold across eight Fridays — and viewers are already buzzing about the suspicious goings-on in the suburbs of Westview.

“I love the idea of week-to-week. Binging has its place, for sure, but there’s something about the mystery — especially for a show like WandaVision — where people can think about what they’ve watched and come up with their own theories and it builds anticipation,” Shakman told ET Online. “It’s worked really well for The Mandalorian, obviously, it worked really well for Game of Thrones — a show I used to work on — it’s exciting to put something out there and allow people to kind of chew on it and come up with their own theories.”

Because Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision’s (Paul Bettany) made-for-TV life borrows styles from television’s most iconic sitcoms — The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Love Lucy for Episode 1, and Bewitched for Episode 2 — Shakman believes it “makes sense” for WandaVision to release week-to-week instead of all at once.

Shakman added, “I also have to say, because we’re involved in a great meta-project with WandaVision being this love letter to the history of sitcoms, is that coming out weekly also feels right for our show, because we’re coming out the way those shows used to come out, so it all seems to make sense.”

On how The Mandalorian might have influenced Marvel’s approach to WandaVision, Feige told press last week that “it was amazing to see the marketing job Disney did in event-izing that.”

Marvel is anticipating the “fun week-to-week discussion,” Feige said, adding Disney was “very smart to drop [Mandalorian episodes] weekly” to build buzz and continue that conversation.

Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Kat Dennings, and Randall Park, new episodes of Marvel’s WandaVision premiere Fridays on Disney+.

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