Credit: Marvel StudiosThe mysterious untitled upcoming WandaVision spinoff series has cast a new villain.
WandaVision, the 2021 Disney+ series focusing on Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany as Vision, has unexpectedly become the newest cornerstone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since the departure of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios has struggled to find a suitable central character that could take his place.
Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) was pitched as the new tentpole character; the massive box office bomb that was The Marvels (2023) seems to have sunk that. The X-Men might eventually become the new franchise anchors, but Kevin Feige is playing his mutant cards pretty close to the chest at the moment.
Either Spider-Man (Tom Holland) or Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) have mass box office appeal, but their futures with the MCU seem pretty vague at the moment.
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Instead, the Marvel Studios seems to be focusing on WandaVision to produce an increasing number of spinoff characters and plot points for the larger universe. The series has already produced Agatha All Along, the new series featuring Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness, as well as Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), the light-powered superhero who seems to have found herself in a nearby parallel universe.
Next up is the untitled Vision series (sometimes referred to as Vision Quest), following the “White Vision” version of the artificial Avenger played by Paul Bettany.
All of this is pretty good for a series that Elizabeth Olsen describes (via Harper’s Bazaar) as “Marvel’s weird cousin.” She also said of WandaVision, “I was really scared about doing a Marvel project for TV, because these are otherworldly, larger-than-life characters that are seen in films, and I didn’t know if it would still work on a television at home…We didn’t know it was going to have such a response.”
It turns out that it is more relevant to the greater MCU than ever, and The Hollywood Reporter is announcing that actor Todd Stashwick has joined the cast of Vision in an unnamed villainous role.
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Todd Stashwick is best known for his role as Captain Liam Shaw in Star Trek: Picard. He mostly plays the antagonist to the titular character, played by Patrick Stewart (who is no stranger to Marvel roles himself). Picard co-showrunner Terry Matalas is in charge of the Vision series, so it won’t be that surprising to see even more Star Trek alumni show up.
THR describes Stashwick’s character as “an assassin who is on the trail of android and the technology he possesses.” It is unknown whether he will be portraying a character originating in Marvel Comics or if he will be an original MCU creation. Vision is expected to begin filming in 2025.
Who is your favorite Marvel villain?