Agatha All Along‘s Creator Is Relieved to Be Set Apart From the MCU

After WandaVision’s tight ties to Marvel’s movies, Jac Schaeffer is glad for some breathing room on the witchy Disney+ series.

As Agatha All Along prepares to drop its fifth episode—out of nine total—fans now have a growing sense of how the show fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And, well, it’s pretty much been a standalone so far, aside from a few hints at Mephisto-adjacent lore. That’s just fine with Agatha All Along creator Jac Schaeffer, who knows a thing or two about being intertwined with the MCU, having also created Agatha‘s predecessor WandaVision. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Schaeffer—who also co-wrote Black Widow, which had many tendrils linked into other Marvel properties—sounded a bit relieved to be working in a relatively independent pocket of the MCU. “Agatha hasn’t appeared in any of the features [so we] didn’t have the burden of retrofitting any canon,” she said. “On WandaVision, both Paul [Bettany] and Lizzie [Elizabeth Olsen] had so much backstory in themselves and between each other. So their moments of romance in the films are so petite, but they meant so much to those two performers. So we wanted to underscore those moments and fill them out more.” She continued. “We also had the larger Scarlet Witch burden of the Infinity Stone and that kind of thing. Even with WandaVision, it was less about how it fits with future properties. We had some of that, but it was more, ‘How do we nestle this in what already exists and both enhance the story we’re telling and buttress the stories that have come before?’ It’s heartbreaking to disavow or tear down what’s already been established, and [upholding the past stories] was part of our work there. So we didn’t have that work in as big of a way on Agatha All Along because Agatha is her own bird.” However, Schaeffer also recognizes that being part of a much bigger picture can actually be helpful in its own way. “Most writers have an enormous imagination, and when something can be anything, that can be daunting,” she said. “So when you’re like, ‘It can only be this thing, but do it well,’ I find that kind of freeing. When we were first looking at the Witches’ Road and how we were going to design it, a lot of what’s in the comics wasn’t material that we could or wanted to use. But then it felt wide open, so I found the initial brainstorming on the road almost too blue sky.” Fortunately, Agatha All Along‘s team found a way to bring focus to that wide blue sky—including giving each stop along the Witches’ Road so far its own fashion aesthetic—that makes the show feel aimed at both Marvel fans and people intrigued by Kathryn Hahn’s spellbinding performance and character. Unfortunately, however, Schaeffer’s dedication to Agatha means she won’t have a direct hand in the next series spawned from her original creation: the Bettany-starring Vision Quest. “It was with a very heavy heart that I realized that [working on Vision Quest] logistically wouldn’t work for me,” she said. “But I am so looking forward to that show. I am just an enormous cheerleader for everybody involved, especially Paul.” A new episode of Agatha All Along arrives tonight on Disney+. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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