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WandaVision: Will the whole Marvel show be in black and white?

*Spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 of WandaVision below*

Isobel Lewis
Saturday 16 January 2021 13:32 GMT
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First trailer for Marvel's WandaVision on Disney+

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Louise Thomas

Louise Thomas

Editor

Fans already can’t get enough of WandaVision, Marvel’s first original TV series for Disney+.

The first two episodes of the show dropped on Friday (15 January), starring Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany as Vision.

But compared to your usual Marvel projects, WandaVision is visually a very different show. Wanda and Vision instead exist in their own 1950s-style sitcom: one that has a laugh track, cartoon theme song and – you’ve guessed it – is filmed in black and white.

The entire first episode of WandaVision is given this monochromatic look, leading fans to question whether the whole show would be shot in black and white.

However, while the series initially keeps this aesthetic as it jumps forward a decade to the 1960s, we do get our first splash of colour in episode two.

During one scene, the couple hear a bang on their bedroom window which they chalk down to a tree hitting the glass.

The next day, Wanda finds a mysterious red and yellow-coloured toy helicopter in a bush in their garden, marking the first appearance of colour in the series. You can find out what fans think the helicopter means here.

Episode two then ends with Wanda and Vision’s world slowly turning technicoloured. This seems more in line with the show’s trailer, which is predominantly filmed in colour as the action jumps forward in time to periods ranging from the 1980s to the present day.

Speaking about the show’s commitment to recreating that classic Fifties sitcom feel, WandaVision cinematographer Jess Hall revealed that they even filmed in front of a live studio audience.

“You’d look at a set, a wardrobe, or my light, and everything just hopefully would just coagulate into a beautiful alchemy of period authenticity,” she said. “It was a lot of cross-departmental work.”

You can read The Independent’s four-star review of WandaVision here.

New episodes of WandaVision drop every Friday on Disney+

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