Marvel's WandaVision Is a Giant Love Letter to the History of Television

May 2024 · 3 minute read

Why is ‘WandaVision’ in black and white? Learn more about Disney+’s new Marvel display, starring Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda and Paul Bettany as Vision.

Source: Disney+

With a lot of WandaVision filmed in black and white in front of a reside studio target market — like vintage sitcoms from days of yore — government producer Matt Shakman jokes that the new Marvel sequence is gonna “overwhelm it with the Nick at Nite crowd” or even the “TCM viewers who haven’t seen Avengers: Endgame.”

Why is 'WandaVision' in black and white?

In the display, which premiered on Disney+ on Friday, Jan. 15, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany play Wanda Maximoff and Vision, reprising their roles from the Avengers motion pictures in a new, sitcom-inspired context. 

Source: Disney+

“The display was once, by means of design, a large love letter to the history of television,” Matt added. “It is intentionally throwing our hands round all of the superb work that has come ahead of in television, starting with Dick Van Dyke in the ‘50s and ‘60s all the manner up to nowadays. So I hope that, just like the MCU movies, that this has a little one thing in it for everybody.”

What is ‘WandaVision’?

Source: Disney Plus

Disney+ says that the nine-episode WandaVision “blends the style of vintage sitcoms with the Marvel Cinematic Universe through which Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) — two super-powered beings living their best suburban lives — begin to suspect that the whole thing is no longer as it kind of feels.”

Marvel elaborates on the premise, saying that Wanda and Vision are settling into married life in combination and striking down roots in the town of Westview.

“Try as Wanda would possibly to fit in and conceal her powers from neighbors, merry domestic mishaps call this magical maven to motion!” Marvel provides. “With a magical wiggle of her fingers, is there the rest she will be able to’t do, or conflict she can’t get to the bottom of?”

The series additionally stars Kat Dennings, reprising her role as Darcy Lewis from Thor and Thor: The Dark World; Randall Park, reprising his role as FBI Agent Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp; Teyonah Parris, who plays the grownup model of Captain Marvel character Monica Rambeau; and newcomer Kathryn Hahn, who plays a nosy neighbor named Agnes. Black Widow screenwriter Jac Schaeffer is the head writer of the collection.

Is ‘WandaVision’ all black and white?

Source: Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

Marvel specifies that the WandaVision crew filmed in black and white for a few of the episodes, but the complete display isn’t monochromatic: The trailers and promos for WandaVision display a lot of action filmed in colourful colour.

In the Marvel article, cinematographer Jess Hall explained the collaboration the black-and-white throwback required: “You’d look at a set, a wardrobe, or my mild, and the entirety simply with a bit of luck would just coagulate into a beautiful alchemy of length authenticity,” Jess mentioned. “It was once a lot of cross-departmental paintings.”

What do critics say about ‘WandaVision’?

Source: GIPHY

So some distance, critics are wowed by way of this vision-ary new bankruptcy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager calls it a “bold sharp right flip for Marvel,” whilst the Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Idato hails it as “a unusual escapist fable that is hastily pleasant.”

And The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan raves, “It’s all deliciously, optimistically, stylishly achieved. The parodies are unbelievable amusing, the jokes are great, the performances (especially from Olsen and Bettany, whose chemistry is a joy in itself) are wonderful.”

WandaVision is recently streaming on Disney+.

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