'WandaVision' Has More VFX Shots Than 'Avengers: Endgame', Will Feature Some Of Marvel's Biggest Setpieces

We already know that WandaVision, the first big Marvel Studios show to be released on Disney+, is going to be an ambitious piece of comic book storytelling. But according to a new interview, it's also going to be hugely ambitious on a visual level as well. In fact, one of the series' stars has revealed that the show will have more visual effects shots than Avengers: Endgame.

And that's not the only way this show is aiming to pull out all the stops. One of the directors says WandaVision will feature some of the biggest set pieces that Marvel has ever done – which seems pretty significant, considering the sheer number of set pieces that have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far.

In the latest issue of Total Film (via GamesRadar), star Paul Bettany revealed that the number of WandaVision VFX shots is going to eclipse that of Avengers: Endgame. "I think it will make everybody look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a whole new way," Bettany said. "Marvel has always taken big swings...But we're a really big swing. There are more VFX shots in WandaVision than we had in Endgame. That's a big ask."

Avengers: Endgame, with its heavy reliance on the digital Thanos as a key character and an absolutely epic final battle sequence featuring basically every living MCU hero thus far, had 2,496 shots that required visual effects. That's a very high number, even for a mega blockbuster. Inception had about 500 VFX shots, and Tenet featured under 300 (although Tenet is admittedly an outlier; Christopher Nolan has said that most romantic comedies feature more VFX shots than Tenet).Endgame's runtime was just over three hours. The first three episodes of WandaVision are about 30 minutes each, and there are nine episodes total. Assuming that runtime stays consistent throughout the series, WandaVision will ultimately run for around four and a half hours.

In that same interview with Total Film, director Matt Shakman also talked up the show's scope: "[Marvel Studios head] Kevin [Feige] was really clear from the beginning that this show would be very different but it would also be as Marvel as anything else they'd ever made – including some of the biggest set pieces they've ever done." Considering the fact that this show centers on two characters who have very VFX heavy superpower skill sets and that it appears to be about a world ripping at the seams around its protagonists, it's not unreasonable that it could outpace Endgame's total number of visual effects shots. Here's hoping the final product ends up being engaging enough to warrant all of this attention. Be sure to check out our own interview with Shakman here.

WandaVision debuts on Disney+ on January 15, 2021.