What’s Next for Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch in the MCU?
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has started a lot of discourse concerning the character of Wanda Maximoff, what her journey has been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what will come next. As for Elizabeth Olsen, who has played the role faithfully since Avengers: Age of Ultron, she doesn’t think the end is near for Wanda.
**Spoilers of Doctor Strange 2.**
“I sign extensions every time they want me to do a movie,” Olsen said when asked about her Marvel contract. “I just signed a very short one at the beginning, so everything’s constantly just, it’s always adjusting for me. No. I don’t think of this either as the end.”
There have been rumors about Elizabeth Olsen allegedly signing a seven-year contract with Marvel—something that would mean we have a lot more Wanda to see, but in what capacity we do not know. Despite hints of a multiverse and several projects directly dealing with the concept, we have yet to see Marvel really take advantage of that.
“I don’t know in what capacity I’ll be back,” she added. “Someone just said, ‘Because you’re bringing in X-Men, Wanda’s a part of the X-Men franchise. Why can’t Wanda be there too?’ In my mind, I’m like, ‘Yeah. Why can’t Wanda be with the X-Men too?’ I have no idea. I don’t know what I want. I know I want it to matter. There’s no reason to continue to tell these stories unless they’re really strong, good stories, and that they’re adding something to the entirety of the MCU. I will be there if there’s a great idea.”
The comics are filled with great ideas for Wanda, but they are built upon foundations that the MCU has not built yet. Of course, that could always change if the Wanda from the X-Men universe would appear.
In terms of Wanda’s villainous plunge in Doctor Strange, Olsen stands by that transformation. “Even in WandaVision — really all of the films I’ve gotten to do — she’s constantly straddling this line and usually her biggest emotive losses or griefs are when something’s born,” Olsen said. “That’s kind of been the trend, and I do think we get to further that in this film, which is something that I’m happy about.”
For those of us unhappy with Wanda’s villainy, there’s a narrative emerging in fan discourse that we have just missed the signs of it in pervious appearances, and I think that is an oversimplification. I think Wanda being a villain makes sense and can be done well. I simply think it was rushed, in the MCU, in a way that leaned into the most reductive parts of Wanda’s mental health journey—especially since Wanda’s storyline in the comics is very different in terms of the context of why her mind shatters. That context being lost has forced Wanda to go down this trauma conga line at breakneck speed to get her to this point, after only having one serious outing as that character in which she wasn’t a supporting player.
I hope that if we continue to see Wanda, we will be allowed to get some of those layers back that got stripped away very quickly.
(via IGN, image: Marvel Studios)
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