Marvel is reportedly developing a WandaVision spin-off with Kathryn Hahn
It was Agatha all along, and now it's going to be Agatha all over again
Aux News Kathryn Hahn
WandaVision kind of fell apart near the end, largely because it wrote some mysterious checks that it was unable to magically cash, but nobody’s going to argue that its shaky conclusion should be blamed on Kathryn Hahn—who brought the exactly right level of wacky menace to her role as evil-ish witch Agatha Harkness (a good contrast to the mopey menace brought by Elizabeth Olsen’s accidentally evil witch Wanda).
Now, according to Variety’s unnamed sources, Marvel Studios and Disney Plus are developing a WandaVision spin-off all about Agatha, with Hahn reprising her role in what’s being billed as a “dark comedy.” Variety doesn’t have specific details beyond that, but it does say that WandaVision writer Jac Schaeffer would return to write and executive produce the series if it gets picked up.
Assuming this does happen, it would be a somewhat rare move from Marvel based on chasing what people like rather than following the The Plan. (An Agatha Harkness spin-off could have been part of The Plan, but come on. We don’t even have the Fantastic Four in the MCU yet.) It would also be a way for Marvel to get some more heat out of WandaVision without having to deal with whatever Wanda’s going to do in Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness. Maybe she could team up with Paul Bettany’s new all-white Vision? We don’t know when he’s going to come back… hey, maybe they could call it AgathaVision?
Anyway, we can’t talk about Kathryn Hahn’s performance as Agatha Harkness for this whole story without referencing “Agatha All Along.” After all, it was the hottest track in the world for one week in February, and it’s still a catchy tune. Agatha All Along would also be a good name for the spin-off, but it feels very “musician biopic” to name a thing after a famous song.
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Marvel has a Plan but they also know a good thing when they see it. As soon as Taika Waititi came along and showed that Comedy Thor was better than Gloomy Serious Thor, all future versions of Thor had a self-parodic edge (up to and including Party Thor in “What If”). That’s one of the cool extras you get from Disney+: the opportunity to pursue interesting side-projects just because they seem like a good idea that can generate some quality episodes within a self-contained universe.
People complain that individual directors’ style and quirks are lost in the house style, but it’s more that they get merged in, much as each entry introduces new ideas into the mix. It’s the Katamari of film franchises.
“but it’s more that they get merged in, much as each entry introduces new ideas into the mix.”
Except that it isn’t at all like that.
I’m a fan of the MCU, but I don’t get need to pretend that 90% of movies could swap writers and directors and it wouldn’t matter one single bit.
Thank you for using the word Katamari in conversation. It’s one of my favorite video game series and I think it should be used in every day vocabulary.
Maybe, but I still think this is one instance where a secondary character should remain as such, and cannot sustain a full show themselves. How many people had to go searching the internet to find out “who” her character even was, probably thinking it was a made up person not even in comics?
Probably the same number of people who didn’t know any of the Guardians of the Galaxy characters before their movie. . . .
That one hit home, but that the first GotG movie is easily one of my favorites from Marvel, I’m a little more informed now. I grew up reading my older brothers comics and was only ever aware of the first tier characters (both Marvel and D.C.), and GotG was a complete double take for me. Also surprising since one of my better friends a few states away owns a comic book chain.
Seriously? Guardians has had several volumes of comics over the years. I don’t think Agatha Harkness even got her own one-shot or What If issue.
For some reason you’re assuming all MCU viewers are also comic book readers.
Most MCU viewers are not readers of the comics. (Also, the modern team of GotG wasn’t formed until 2008.)
Let’s see, she’s a magic-user who’s lived for centuries within the Marvel universe. If you can’t find even one interesting storyline to follow within those parameters, you’re not trying very hard – and that’s before Kathryn Hahn shows up to imbue a great deal of charm into whatever lines you write for her.
I hope they incorporate some of her comic lore. Specifically the fantastic 4 stuff. Although I’m guessing it’ll be Salem heavy
Bring back Ralpb Bohner but also the fact he was actually the X-Men Quicksilver disguised as Ralph as he was Peter Maximoff and hence Evan Peters for all intents and purposes was reprising his role which was great!
“WandaVision kind of fell apart near the end,”
Equally well-supported counterpoint: no it didn’t.
For Wanda, Vision and Agatha, it wasn’t bad.For every other character on that show though, yeah it did fall apart.
Hopefully a spinoff will let them recycle the ideas that were scrapped because of Covid.
every other character was set dressing lmao
I wouldn’t say it fell apart, though the finale kind of pales in comparison to previous excellent episodes.I would say that it is quite an entertainingly fun finale.
There are people who complain that the ending was bad because the show stopped being a creepy fake sitcom. But…that was kind of the point? The fake sitcom angle HAD to end for the story to have a resolution. I guess some folks just wanted them to do a second season where Wanda is still trapping everyone in town in a remake of Cheers or something.
But the fake sitcom was only replaced with an episode that was all exposition and a routine superhero battle. They could have been so much more creative with things!
“There are people who complain that the ending was bad because the show stopped being a creepy fake sitcom.”
TIL that there are people who wanted WandaVision to only be that, rather than impatiently waiting for it to stop being a boring sitcom.
It’s the “you know, just ONCE I’d like to see a Titanic movie not set on a boat” approach of not getting what genre you’re in.
Titanic… but it’s a skyscraper!
I would watch that, but only if they inexplicably kept the iceberg collision.
Giant ball of hail falling out of the sky followed by flooding via rain… My god, we’re making this movie, aren’t we?
Alright so we need to make sure to have a forbidden romance between a wealthy female CEO and a janitor. Maybe in the beginning she’s trying to get more lifeboats for the building and everyone thinks she’s crazy because “there’s no way this skyscraper can sink!”
9/11 did that already
Yeah, I see that happening with a lot of Marvel movies/TV shows. There’s this refrain of, “and then there’s a big CGI battle at the end, which is so boring, there’s always a big battle in the third act, why do they keep doing the same thing?”
Uh, because that’s what happens in the third act of an action movie? Like, always? I mean, yeah, with CGI the spectacle of BIG DAMN ACTION SCENE has gotten kind of same-y since there are no limits on what they can do, but that doesn’t change the fact that the end of an action movie has, ya know, action.
I said in some other thread the other day that it’s like people going to a Star Wars movie and complaining that there are stars and wars. It’s the nature of the franchise – if someone doesn’t like it that can be valid, but that’s just plain how it works.
“And why does McDonald’s insist on serving burgers? Why can’t they do something different for once?!”
Except the Loki finale proves it doesn’t have to end in a big, weightless CGI dust-up. Sometimes you just need to write compelling dialogue and a thoughtful conclusion. Worked just fine for Jonathan Majors.The only reason WandaVision ended with two great actors slinging colored energy balls at each other is because the writers couldn’t come up with a better ending, and I say this as someone who really liked WV.
But saying that depends on leaving out the part where one of the battles there ended by trickery and the other by a goddamn discussion of the Ship of Theseus philosophical construct, rather than by the punches and lasers.
I think the Loki finale is the exception that proves the rule, and it helps that it was very much a “To Be Continued . . .” ending. There’s absolutely no way people would stand for a Marvel movie that ends with a 25 minute lecture.
The episode before that finale was a big CGI dustup where Loki and friends fight the evil cloud that’s guarding the Bad Guy Castle, but okay.(Also: the Loki finale was bad. Half an hour of Johnathan Majors trying really hard to come off as quirky while spoon-feeding us a neverending torrent of exposition, and the whole time Loki and Girl Loki just kind of passively sit there, being irrelevant.)
But that’s what people loved about Civil War. The big CGI battle happened in the middle, and the final fight was two estranged friends absolutely beating the shit out of each other while talking about their feelings.
“This superhero show shouldn’t have superheroes in it! Only then would it be a truly great superhero show.”
“Also, why is Falcon and the Winter Soldier so boring?”
I think there were ways to thread the needle — have Wanda and Agatha’s fight crash through different sitcom realities! have characters get stuck in sitcom mode again and have to break out! — that they didn’t hit. And the writing just generally felt less fun and intelligent, and the directing more clumsy, in the finale than in other episodes. I don’t think the finale was awful, but I don’t think it lived up to the rest of the show.
They should do Coach, you cowards.
I agree but the vast majority of online opinion disagrees with us
Not so sure about that – the article Sam linked had nearly all of his co-workers agreeing with us, hilariously enough.
Well, everyone knows WandaVision died in the final episode. What this book presupposes is… maybe it didn’t?In all seriousness, I think the show was overrated overall and wasn’t nearly as good as its reputation from the beginning. But the fact that it devolved into another CG red laser/blue laser battle was not ideal.
But the fact that it devolved into another CG red laser/blue laser battle was not ideal.
Lots of people seem to be working overtime to pretend they don’t understand this is the main criticism of the show’s final third.
It’s not the sitcom part ending. It’s not the fact that action happened. It’s the lack of creativity coming at the end of something that had, until that point, been so fresh, creative and interesting.
The last episode was the weakest of the series, but “fell apart” is typical A.V. Club snark hyperbole.
Absolutely. Maybe the finale was a little messy, but it actually managed to deliver on all the themes it had been building up during its run. There was some goddamn catharsis. I can’t at all say the same thing about Loki and Captain Falcon (I’m not typing out the full thing).
Funny. She doesn’t look druish.
But you should see HER ORIGINAL NOSE!
Enough with this Wiccan-face!
I’m concerned about “Dru Face”.
Maybe bring along Darcy and Jimmy Woo also, because why not. And maybe Wong & add a complicated romantic history between him & Agatha
It’s impossible to say no to more Kathryn Hahn, in any capacity.
Unless you’re HBO, apparently.
I’d LOVE a backdoor F4 intro here. Not gonna happen, but I’d love it.
The AV Club I’d LOVE a backdoor
Ha HA: butt stuff!
Meh at least Kathryn Hahn is getting work.
A dark-comedy series that lets the MCU explore the magic side of things (as we dive more into that with Blade, Strange 2, and a few other things I’m probably forgetting) does sound like a good idea. But I can’t shake this feeling that maybe this isn’t…the best idea? And I’m usually the first to think that scratching where it itches is a good thing.
Ah well. We’ll take it!
Could be a good way to bring back Ghost Rider, especially with the Darkhold in play.
True! Also, huzzah, I saw this notification that you replied. Magical.
TURNS OUT IN THE SUBSEQUENT LOKI SERIES IT WAS ACTUALLY KANG THE CONQUEROR ALL ALONG
Very interesting. Lots of different directions they can go with this–I hope they dig deep into the magical side, and bring in a lot of her comics-storylines. I loved WandaVision, and think this has a lot of promise.
Love Agatha and Kathryn Hahn but I’m a little skeptical of this. Not sure you can build a whole series around Agatha. I’m totally down for Agatha coming back, but it seems like the kind of character that would be better served popping up from time to time instead of a full series. This seems more like Disney saying “Oh, people like Agatha? FULL SERIES ORDER!” with little to no thought.
It’s comic accurate. Oh this character is popular? Whole new series, doesn’t even have to make sense within their timelines.
“WandaVision kind of fell apart near the end”
And by “fell apart” you mean “finally got good”, right?
Literally EVERYONE can have a TV show now except Daredevil.
Yeah, where’s DD? He didn’t just recently finish a nearly-40-episode run on Netflix, so I’m going to whiny like a pissy cunt about another character getting a series that has literally nothing to do with DD and that should have absolutely no impact whatsoever on DD.
And Jessica Jones. And Luke Cage.But they’ll probably bring back Iron Fist just to fuck with us.
We probably won’t see The Punisher again for a while.
In fairness to Daredevil himself, he’d probably appreciate an audio drama more.
Where’s Cyborg?
Where’s Cyborg?On Doom Patrol.
And well he’s … fine enough on it.
I’ll do you one better! WHY is Cyborg?!?!
Can we get a Darcy spin-off, please?
We did. It was called Two Broke Girls and the good people of the TVA worked overtime that day when they found it.
If you’d told me back in 2008 that the Iron Man movie I was watching was going to eventually lead up to a freakin’ Agatha Harkness TV series, I would simply not have believed you.
I just want to point out that Agatha never actually did anything evil the entire show! She killed witches in the past, but only ones that were actively in the process of attempting to execute her! She restrained the kids, but the kids were also about as real as a Sims family!At worst, she just engaged in 1950’s sitcom level shenanigans a couple of times in the torture simulation that Wanda, the protagonist, had created. She didn’t deserve her fate, dammit!
Obviously this is entirely academic, but the show seemed to take pains to show the kids were real, in the end.
I mean yeah, it kinda-sorta implied that during the after credits scene. But that could just as easily be inferred to be Wanda diving deeper into her magical delusions. And at the time when Agatha was restraining the kids, Agatha certainly had no reason to think they were any more real than any other part of the sitcom setting.
So, because nothing is more fun than good-natured pop-culture arguments:- Agatha specifically mentions Wanda’s power of creation as a source of envy. The things ARE real, inside of the bubble, and this is remarkable enough that Agatha wants that ability. The tease at the end is that they may also be (/ definitely are) real outside of the bubble, somewhere.- She didn’t do anything to stop said torture simulation, just sat back and let everyone suffer while plotting to kill/steal the power of the person who (subconsciously, unknowingly) created it.
– Even without all of that, attacking the kids (even if they’re fake!) is messed up for the same reason kids who kill all their Sims should probably talk to someone.I thought they nailed her as an anti-hero, because she really WAS an anti-here which is kind of refreshing. There was no good cause behind any of her actions. She was just trying to get more power, calmly and rationally hurting people in the process (as opposed to Wanda’s desperation and self-delusion in not wanting to acknowledge what she had done.)
Showing remarkable restraint by not making it a crossover series featuring Agatha and Grogu’s wacky adventures together.
I didn’t understand WTF was going on in WandaVision and that has Elizabeth Olsen. If this makes no sense and ain’t got no Elizabeth Olsen, I’m OUT!
Disney is finally making a Hahn solo TV show.
Boooooo! Now take your star and get out.
If this goes through, I hope the showrunners learn from the failings of Loki and lets Agatha stay, if not outright villainous, then at least morally ambiguous. The Loki we got was a defanged do-gooder who re-went through all his character development because he marathoned the MCU
“Great show, but all of that magic and witch stuff got in the way.” Future Sam review, probably.
The show got a bit fuzzy at the end, because they did and did not want to 100% acknowledge that Wanda was the antagonist. They kept saying “Grief was the real villain!” Grief was a motive. But so was Wanda’s selfishness. As soon as they depicted Wanda as knowing what she was doing, and her willfully keeping on doing it, Wanda became the villain. So, half the time Agatha was right — Wanda was a dangerous naïf, a threat to the world, and she had to be stopped. Agatha almost crossed over to anti-hero.It still doesn’t make sense to me that all this was going on only 90-ish minutes from Dr Strange’s home in Greenwich Village, and he or Wong apparently knew nothing about it. Maybe Wong was in Macao and Strange was rattling around the multi-verse with Peter Parker.
I guess I’m the only person not on the Kathryn Hahn bandwagon. It might be the things I’ve seen her in, but she always strikes me as being just a little bit too much.