Development By October 2018,
Marvel Studios was developing a limited series starring
Elizabeth Olsen's
Wanda Maximoff and
Paul Bettany's
Vision from the
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
films. In August 2019,
Matt Shakman was hired to direct the miniseries. He and
head writer Jac Schaeffer executive produced alongside Marvel Studios'
Kevin Feige,
Louis D'Esposito, and
Victoria Alonso. Feige described the series as part "classic
sitcom", part "Marvel epic", paying tribute to many eras of American sitcoms. The seventh episode, "Breaking the Fourth Wall", was written by Cameron Squires, with the sitcom reality scenes paying homage to the mid-to-late 2000s and 2010s.
Writing Because Schaeffer and the writers structured the series and Maximoff's arc based on the stages of grief, they knew that this episode was going to be the "depression episode", which happened to line-up with the confessional, mockumentary style of the sitcoms that this episode emulates, including
Modern Family. Squires found some elements of writing the episode to be easy because the "talking head" segments of the mockumentary style allowed for the characters to directly tell the audience how they were feeling, but also found it a challenge to balance the different tones required for the episode. To help him with this, Schaeffer showed Squires a talking head scene from
The Office where
Pam Beesly tries to be happy but then breaks down crying, which showed ways that tone could change within the talking head segments. Early drafts of the episode "
On a Very Special Episode..." had elements of Maximoff and Vision's house, such as the plumbing, starting to go "haywire" as a sign that Maximoff was losing control of the sitcom reality, but this idea was eventually moved to "Breaking the Fourth Wall". Actress
Teyonah Parris called
Monica Rambeau's journey into the Hex in the episode her "moment to grieve and to just scream and let it out" and the "physical manifestation of Monica moving through her grief", with Parris trying to image the "heaviness of [her] guilt" and ultimately wanting to let her mother,
Maria Rambeau, know she would move forward. The episode also features a
mid-credits scene, the first for the series. Shakman said the mid-credits scene was included starting with this episode because "we've busted out of the television construct... so we can now introduce the Marvel language of the teaser scene... and that it happened to be when that device was invented made sense for how we were evolving the storytelling as well." The series features fake commercials that Feige said would show "part of the truths of the show beginning to leak out", with "Breaking the Fourth Wall" including a commercial that advertises Nexus anti-depression drugs with the slogan "Because the world doesn't revolve around you. Or does it?". Matt Purslow of
IGN felt this commercial was meant to represent Maximoff moving into depression from her angry grief stage, while
Entertainment Weeklys Christian Holub likened the drug name "Nexus" to
Marvel Comics' Nexus of All Realities, which is a portal that allows travel between dimensions. Phil Owen at
TheWrap acknowledged the potential Nexus of All Realities connection but felt it was more likely that the drug was a reference to Maximoff's comic book status as a "Nexus Being", a living version of the Nexus of All Realities who can rewrite reality and is the focal point of the universe. He noted that the series depicts Maximoff as much more powerful than in the films, bringing her closer to the comic book version. An early version of the commercial saw
Benedict Cumberbatch reprising his role as Dr.
Stephen Strange in a "blink-and-you-miss-it
cameo" as the pharmacist, before Cumberbatch was removed to avoid detracting from Maximoff's story. The
series premiere of
Loki in June 2021 revealed that a "Nexus event" in the MCU is an event that creates a new branched timeline in the multiverse.
Casting The episode stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, Paul Bettany as Vision, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau,
Evan Peters as "
Pietro Maximoff",
Randall Park as
Jimmy Woo,
Debra Jo Rupp as Mrs. Hart,
Kat Dennings as
Darcy Lewis / the Escape Artist, and
Kathryn Hahn as "Agnes" /
Agatha Harkness. Also appearing in the episode are Julian Hilliard and
Jett Klyne as
Billy and
Tommy, respectively, Maximoff and Vision's sons,
Josh Stamberg as S.W.O.R.D. Director
Tyler Hayward,
Emma Caulfield Ford as Dottie Jones,
Jolene Purdy as Beverly, David Payton as Herb, David Lengel as Phil Jones,
Asif Ali as Norm, Alan Heckner as S.W.O.R.D. Agent Monti / the Strongman, Rachael Thompson as Major Goodner, Selena Anduze as S.W.O.R.D. Agent Rodriguez, and Amos Glick as the delivery man Dennis. Victoria Blade, Ithamar Enriquez, Wesley Kimmel, and Sydney Thomas portray the actors in the Nexus anti-depression commercial. Archival audio of a young Monica Rambeau, her mother Maria Rambeau,
Carol Danvers, and
Nick Fury from the film
Captain Marvel (2019) is heard in the episode when Rambeau attempts to enter the Hex.
Design Shakman and cinematographer
Jess Hall put together a collection of images from existing series that influenced the framing, composition, and color of the episode's sitcom setting, and Hall created a specific color palette of 20 to 30 colors for the episode based on those reference images so he could control the "visual integrity in color" of the episode. Hall worked with production designer Mark Worthington and costume designer Mayes C. Rubeo to ensure that the sets and costumes matched with his color palette. Because the
Agatha All Along sequence begins in color and then transitions to black-and-white, makeup head
Tricia Sawyer coordinated with Hall to make sure the colors of Hahn's makeup looked natural in both formats. Sawyer gave her more vibrant, pink lips that Hall had to make additional adjustments to with the
digital intermediate so the transition would work. ''
Perception, who created the end credits sequence for the series, also created two title sequences for this episode. The opening sequence is in the style of the sitcom
Happy Endings, with a title card in the style of
Modern Family. For the
Agatha All Along title sequence, Perception created purple smoke transitions between the different shots of the montage, as well as title graphics inspired by
The Munsters. Additionally, Perception provided graphics for the episode's fake commercial based on similar commercials from the late 2000s.
Filming Soundstage filming occurred at
Pinewood Atlanta Studios in
Atlanta, Georgia, with Shakman directing, and Hall serving as cinematographer. Filming also took place in the
Atlanta metropolitan area, with
backlot and outdoor filming occurring in Los Angeles when the series resumed production after being on hiatus due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Hall began using LED lighting with the episode since the episode's sitcom era was when that equipment began to be used. The episode was filmed to emulate the "talk-to-the-camera, shaky-camera, documentary style" of modern
mockumentary-style sitcoms. The moments featured in the
Agatha All Along montage, which take place at the same time as scenes from past episodes, were filmed at the same time as those episodes so the crew could utilize the sets for their time periods. Hall said there was a "shift" required to film these moments at those times, since they were often single shots using a different type of camera setup or move, such as a crane, from the rest of those episodes. He added that the sequence is more cinematic than the rest of this episode's style.
Visual effects Tara DeMarco served as the visual effects supervisor for
WandaVision, with the episode's visual effects created by SSVFX,
Lola VFX,
Rodeo FX,
Industrial Light & Magic,
Zoic Studios, Framestore,
Cantina Creative, The Yard VFX,
RISE, capital T, and Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ). Rodeo FX developed the visual effects for the Hex boundary, based on the magnetization of old CRT television screens when brought into contact with magnets. The boundary is depicted as red to reflect Maximoff's anger and to reinforce that it is a hard barrier, with reflections of the environment that can be seen during daytime for which Rodeo was inspired by reflective television screens. Rodeo was also responsible for the sequence where Rambeau enters the Hex and gains superpowers, which had very different requirements from the sequence in the previous episode that they handled where Vision attempts to leave the Hex. Rodeo created the first concept for the Rambeau sequence in February or March 2020, and did not know where the sequence would end up creatively so supervisor Julien Héry chose to use a primarily compositing-based approach that could be quickly changed by swapping out elements. After trying out various concepts with different levels of motion in them, Marvel eventually returned to the original concept. The final sequence uses various takes of Parris in different costumes that were filmed in front of a green screen, which Rodeo "smeared" together using
Nuke. The final Hex environment was then built and combined with the Parris footage using
Flame. The environment starts with more basic elements of the Hex, but these become more overt digital glitches the further in that Rambeau gets, with "magnetic eruptions" inspired by solar flares. This range of elements was based on a glossary that Rodeo put together to discuss possibilities for the Hex with DeMarco. One thing Héry wanted to avoid was mixing up the sequence with the powers of a different Marvel hero, so for example he intentionally avoided images that looked too similar to the
Bifröst rainbow bridge from the
Thor films. The rover that Rambeau attempts to drive into the Hex was built practically and used on set, but it had to be pulled by a car which Rodeo then digitally erased from the scene. It also did not move as fast as the producers wanted it to, so it is replaced with a digital version in some shots to depict it driving faster. All shots where the rover interacts with the boundary use a digital version of the vehicle, though the real rover was lifted by a crane on set to provide reference for the digital version. DeMarco used Vision's introduction in
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) as the definitive version of the character when approaching the visual effects for him in
WandaVision. Bettany wore a bald cap and face makeup on set to match Vision's color, as well as tracking markers for the visual effects teams to reference. Complex 3D and digital makeup techniques were then used to create the character, with sections of Bettany's face replaced with CGI on a shot-by-shot basis; the actor's eyes, nose, and mouth were usually the only elements retained. SSVFX was the primary vendor for Vision in this episode. In addition to the techniques used by other vendors for creating Vision, SSVFX also adapted their bespoke methodologies for face replacements and digital de-aging to help with what would otherwise be manual clean-up. This also allowed them to match movements at a pixel level, and to add effects to shots that went "underneath" the lighting that was filmed on set. They created their own naming structure for each of the components of Vision's face to aid with the repetitive nature of the effect. Lola VFX digitally replaced Pietro's hair for a shot in the
Agatha All Along sequence after Marvel decided that it should be more like the version seen in the films than the white wig that Peters wore on set for filming of the fifth episode, which is when this shot was filmed. The wig was adjusted for the filming of this episode.
Music The episode's opening theme song, "W-V 2000", was written by
Kristen Anderson-Lopez and
Robert Lopez and performed by The Math Club. It is an instrumental track similar in style to
the theme from
The Office, which followed the trend of sitcoms starting in the 2000s that did not feature lyrics with their opening themes. Anderson-Lopez said if they had written lyrics for the song, they would have followed its feeling of things "speeding up and out of control". The episode also includes the theme song "
Agatha All Along", which was also written by Anderson-Lopez and Lopez. It is similar to
the theme song for
The Munsters and
the theme song for
The Addams Family. The couple were drawn to the past monster-centric series' music in order to give Agatha's theme a "witchy, ghoulish feeling" with "a little bit of an
Oompa-Loompa tenor feel to it too". Hahn is the lead singer on the song, with Lopez singing backup along with the other male backup singers from the series' previous theme songs. The song went
viral after the release of the episode. It was important to Shakman that the sequence where Rambeau passes through the Hex felt scary while she was in there and then triumphant once she emerges with superpowers. Composer
Christophe Beck's music for the sequence went through a lot of iterations and rewrites until he and Shakman were happy with the balance of emotions in it. The music uses the theme that Beck introduced for Rambeau in the series' fourth episode and used throughout the episodes since then, but this is the first time it is used in such a bold and triumphant way which Beck felt was a satisfying musical moment for the series. A soundtrack album for the episode was released digitally by
Marvel Music and
Hollywood Records on February 23, 2021, featuring Beck's score. The first two tracks are the episode's theme songs by Anderson-Lopez and Lopez. The soundtrack was originally scheduled to be released on February 26, with
The Verge speculating the release was moved up due to the popularity of "Agatha All Along". Upon release, "Agatha All Along" peaked at number one on
iTunes' Soundtrack chart, and, by February 24, reached fifth on iTunes' Top 100 singles chart. It also debuted on
Billboards
Digital Songs Sales chart at 36. == Marketing ==