Like with every new entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision had fans all over the map with their increasingly inventive theories that had many believing the likes of Mephisto and Magneto were about to show up in the finale without any prior buildup. With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier out on Friday, it's likely that history will end up repeating itself as fans once again get sucked back into their beloved MCU and begin to wildly theorize about what's to come next.
During the global press conference Sunday, yours truly, CBM's own Rohan Patel, was able to ask Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige himself about how they seek to strike that creative balance between not necessarily always giving fans what they may want, but to give them something instead they may not have realized they needed at that moment in time.
"It's taking advantage of the different storytelling medium that we have with Disney+, and what excites us in the room. What makes us interested, excited, what could happen at the end of an episode that would keep us interested? Because, you know, we're all fans within Marvel Studios. So, it really is kind of the same balance that we've been trying to strike for the last ten-plus years and figuring out, yes, how to exceed expectations, but also how to subvert expectations.
I've never thought of it in terms of what people want versus what they need, it's just, how do you provide the best, most engaged level of storytelling to the audience, and sometimes that is subverting what they expect. There are times where something comes up totally out of left field that even we weren't anticipating, like, for instance, the aeronautical, aerospace engineer, that is asked about, that turns into a whole thing. That was new to us, but other than that, we're usually quite in sync with what people are expecting, and either delivering on that or surprising and subverting that."
Marvel Studios has built an empire off subverting expectations over the course of the past decade, ultimately culminating in the gargantuan Avengers: Endgame. Phase 4 has also already gotten off to a strong start with an extremely cathartic, and wholly unique, journey for Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) as she ascended into the Scarlet Witch, so it's probably safe to say that their plans for Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) will be equally as rewarding - even if there isn't any totally secret, completely unexpected cameo from Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) or Wolverine...