The revelation of Baby Yoda in the first season of The Mandalorian and the character’s explosive popularity proved to be a watershed moment in the history of streaming channels, proving that an online series can have just as much of an impact on pop culture as classic television programming like Friends and Game of Thrones. Every new streaming show is now in search of its own “Baby Yoda” moment. Matt Shakman, Director of WandaVision, recently discussed the possibility of his show having a similarly pop-culture-defining moment.
“I would never be so bold as to say that we had a Baby Yoda moment. But we certainly, you know, we’re trying to tell a story that is about these two amazing characters. These characters that have made an indelible impression despite having relatively little screen time over the last you know, four or five films. You know, when they’re, you’re competing in these Avengers movies for attention with all these different characters and all these different storylines.”
“The fact that Vision and Wanda have been such a powerful, you know, duo. And I think people are very taken. I am certainly with their love story. And then we’re able to tell this amazing story. This romance over nine episodes, But also an adventure story, a mystery a thriller, and a comedy. It’s going to all these different places. So, whether you have one baby Yoda moment or a bunch of smaller baby Yoda moments, the ultimate thing for me as a storyteller is that the cumulative power of these nine episodes is a really satisfying journey. And that people will be pulled in from beginning to end.”
MCU showrunner Kevin Feige originally conceived of WandaVision as a way to explore the trauma that Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch has experienced, as she tries to construct an artificial perfect world where her android boyfriend Vision is still alive and the two lead a blissful life in the suburbs. For Feige, every episode of WandaVision is designed to provoke a strong reaction, and his main hope is that the series keeps audiences engaged as much as The Mandalorian did.
“What’s fun is I don’t know [which episode will garner the biggest reaction]. I mean, any one of them. They’ve all been designed to surprise and delight, as they say, so we’ll see. There are a handful of them that I can think of, but all of them, I’m anxious and very excited to experience for the first time the week to week unveiling and seeing how people feel week to week.”
“Usually, for us, of course, it’s just been feature to feature, and the moments within features we’d be excited for, which is why we would go around to theaters to watch the audience moments. Now, we’ll be curious to see as somebody behind the scenes experiencing what I’ve experienced as a fan episode by episode on Mandalorian, which is, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen? Where’s it going? What do we think?’ It’ll be fun to see that on WandaVision, what people are feeling.”
Written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, and Kathryn Hahn as Agnes. The series premieres on January 15 on Disney+. ComicBook.com brings us this news.
