WandaVision Star Paul Bettany Teases Vision and Scarlet Witch Clash Coming Soon

There’s no question that WandaVision has given fans quite a lot to take in, as the inaugural Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ series has taken some major narrative swings. Last week’s episode, “We Interrupt This Program”, began to pull back the curtain on the series’ sitcom-inspired world, in a way that has definitely made audiences begin to speculate about what future episodes will hold. With previous trailers for the series teasing a potential superpowered fight between The Vision (Paul Bettany) and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), that speculation has gone into some bleak territory — and according to Bettany, the series’ ever-evolving sitcom inspirations will reflect that.

“It’s interesting to look at the American century through the prism of which sitcoms were out,” Bettany explained to TVLine. “You start off with Dick Van Dyke, where there’s real warmth to that relationship. By Bewitched, you’ve got a man whose wife is incredibly powerful, and yet he’s embarrassed by how powerful she is. Then you get to The Brady Bunch where everyone’s pretending there’s nothing wrong in the world, meanwhile you’ve got this huge civil rights struggle and the Vietnam War.”

Bettany went on to reference “Family Ties and teachable moments,” followed by the “very cynical and cool time of Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family,” before adding that “[In those shows], couples aren’t necessarily that fond of each other. And that fact serves our purpose in this show very well.”

Olsen has also made previous comments about those more modern sitcom influences, particularly the “cynical” nature of Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family — although the idea of Wanda and Vision’s relationship being particularly impacted by that is definitely interesting.

“The humor of Malcolm in the Middle and then Modern Family becomes incredibly cynical, and that’s what we found comforting, for whatever reason, as a society. So it was just fun when we were in this boot camp to not only just chart the physical changes as tools, but also, ‘What was comedy for history of that time?’” Olsen previously said of the cast and crew’s TV-watching boot camp to prepare for WandaVision. “Like the fact that The Brady Bunch is a result of Vietnam or Rosemary’s Baby is a film and Brady Bunch is on television, that doesn’t make any sense to me. But for whatever reason, that’s what the consumer was watching at home.”

WandaVision debuts new episodes on Disney+ every Friday. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

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