With the release date of ‘WandaVision’ fixed on January of next year, the launch of this show will signify a huge shift in direction by Marvel. True, this new live action series is exciting (primarily because it will be the first show to be truly in continuity with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)) but with the cancellation/completion of other Marvel TV series, Marvel Studios has set a precedent on how their future content will be coming out from now on.
‘WandaVision’ is going to be the first of many live-action Marvel Superhero series which will be continuous with the rest of the MCU. This series is meant to be the starting point from which series like ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’, ‘Loki’, ‘What… if?’, ‘Hawkeye’ and the rest will follow over the next few years. The previous shows of ‘Jessica Jones’, ‘Daredevil’, ‘Luke Cage’, ‘Iron Fist’, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ among others were all set in an alternate universe from the MCU and that eventually got them cancelled.
Back when ‘Ironman’, ‘Thor’, ‘Captain America’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk’ all came on to the big screen for Marvel – they all had solid groundwork set as stand-alone films. Any film watcher could watch the movies without having any prior comic-book knowledge. Even ‘Avengers’ was well made, the culmination of Superheroes in a single live-action movie was a sight to behold and the Joss Whedon flick was brilliant enough to attract people who haven’t seen a single Marvel movie before.
As they released more stand-alone films (which could still be watched by any new comer and be enjoyed), sequels such as ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’ and ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ also garnered in new audiences and the MCU fan base grew. So by the time ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ rolled up, the production house just dived straight into the story, stopped caring about what the rest of non-watcher/fans wanted and made a film just for the MCU fanbase. And it worked. The fourth Avengers film, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ became the highest grossing film in history.
With that Marvel Studios knew they had an incredible fanbase for just the MCU and decided to expand on that (which was why the other shows were cancelled/wrapped up). With the focus now being on this huge machine of Superheroes, and X-men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool joining them soon (due to Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox), Marvel can create a whole plethora of new stories and expand the MCU onto a new platform. Given enough time, they can even revisit their other cancelled projects for “fan service”.