Did You Catch This Raimi Reference in WandaVision?
What would the season finale of WandaVision be without a few killer allusions? One Sam Raimi reference in particular sent us over the rainbow – especially considering how it pays homage to an upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie!
If you haven’t had a chance to see “The Series Finale” of WandaVision on Disney+, you may want to navigate your Computational Services screen away from this webpage.
The Wicked Witch of Westview
The allusion appears for a second time (the first time was Episode 3 “Now in Color”) on the Westview movie theater’s marquis during the climactic battle between Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
Photo: Marvel Studios
As reality “changes channels” and different movies are advertised on the Coronet’s marquis, one of the movies that appears is Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Photo: Disney
First and foremost, this is a reference to The Wizard of Oz (1939), which is fitting for WandaVision: not only does the show play with the idea of finding yourself in a different world (especially one that plays with black-and-white and color), but it also features a witch as the most prominent antagonist.
Agatha’s Boots in a Wicked Witch of the West reference. Photo: Marvel Studios
In fact, in the first act of “The Series Finale,” we even see Agatha’s boots appear underneath a car, just like the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.
Over the Rainbow with Raimi
However, there’s another reason that Oz the Great and Powerful may have been included: the movie’s director, Sam Raimi, is directing the upcoming Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is scheduled to be released in movie theaters in 2022.
Sam Raimi and James Franco BTS for Oz the Great and Powerful. Photo: Disney
Furthermore, Oz the Great and Powerful was scored by longtime Raimi collaborator Danny Elfman, who also worked with Raimi on the scores for two of the three Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies.
Groovy Bruce Enters the Raimi-verse?
It seems as though Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is going to be quite the adventure, even including a possible cameo from another longtime Raimi co-conspirator, Bruce Campbell.
Here at Marvel Blog, all we can say is: can we see this movie already?
