Scarlet Witch is a fairly new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although she
has a rich and bizarre comic history that goes as far back as most of the Avengers.
When it comes to getting her own standalone movie, that lengthy history might actually
hurt more than it helps.
Here's why we think Marvel won't give Scarlet Witch her own movie.
Olsen’s not sold
Elizabeth Olsen, the actress who plays Scarlet Witch, has been enjoying a nice career lift
from the MCU, but isn’t sold on doing a solo movie.
She said: "The pressure of a tentpole movie on my shoulders doesn't feel comfortable."
In the meantime, she's taken advantage of the tight scheduling of the Marvel machine
to find other projects.
Though she’s obviously hesitant, Olsen did admit she might be interested, though the
story would "have to make sense for how it advances the world."
Toy troubles
Times are changing, but not that quickly.
Captain America: Civil War has the distinction of having the most female heroes of all the
MCU movies so far — and that’s definitely a good thing.
However, just like Black Widow in the previous Avengers films, Scarlet Witch figures were
scarce to practically non-existent in the movie's initial toy line.
Take this Avengers vs. Ultron box set.
It's got nine figures — nine!
And while it doesn't include Black Widow or Scarlet Witch, two of the film's most important
characters, it does manage to find room for a figure called..."Sub-Ultron?"
Yikes.
Marvel has been working on these diversity oversights, and both Scarlet Witch and Black
Widow eventually got their own action figures — multiple versions, in fact — but the
historic reluctance to lean heavily on its female heroes doesn't bode well for the possibilities
of Scarlet Witch being allowed to carry a standalone film.
Like it or not, toys are still big business when it comes to superhero movies.
If they don’t think a Scarlet Witch toy will sell, it makes a movie even less likely.
Bonkers backstory
Scarlet Witch is a great character for an ensemble cast.
She has a cool look, cool powers, and her magic skills are a nice balance to heroes
with tech weapons and hand-to-hand skills.
But, as useful as that might be, there are a whole lot of problems once you dig a bit
deeper.
Wanda Maximoff’s history goes back to the same Silver Age comics era as the Avengers,
with her first appearance coming only a year after the team's debut.
Most comic book storylines got pretty weird in the 1960s, but hers set the gold standard
for wacky.
Wanda and her brother Pietro, better known as Quicksilver, were born after their mother
fled their father — more on him later — and were adopted by a guy called the High Evolutionary.
Oh, and they were also raised by a cow.
Yes, an actual cow.
Her name is Bova!
And that's actually only the start of Scarlet Witch's weirdness.
Her powers powers are basically magic, and in both the movies and comics, she gained
them by being experimented on.
Looking back to the comics, most of Scarlet Witch's powers are actually channeled through
a demon god named Chthon.
But she's also gained additional powers through deals with the character Mephisto — who
is basically Marvel’s version of the devil.
Between her having a cow for a mom and all the business she does with literal demons,
making a movie that's true to her comics roots might be, well, a little challenging.
Family film issues
The cinematic rights to Marvel's X-Men franchise have been owned by Fox for a long while.
With the Marvel Cinematic Universe owned by Disney, the odds for a crossover are pretty
much nonexistent.
So things can get a little touchy when you have characters related to one another spread
between the two companies.
For decades of comic book history, it was pretty clearly established that Magneto is
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s biological father.
Meanwhile, Marvel has since made that point a bit looser with some recent storylines that
suggest the twins were never mutants in the first place — possibly in an effort to better
match the films.
But no matter how you slice it, Scarlet Witch and Magneto have tons of comic book history
together.
For a movie to push all that out of the way could potentially alienate longtime fans.
Too powerful?
One of the toughest challenges in writing a character like Scarlet Witch is that they
haven’t actually established an upper limit to her powers.
At various times in the comics she's re-written time and shifted reality, resurrected the
dead and brought characters to life out of thin air.
At one point, she willed the entire mutant species out of existence.
In the same way screenwriters often struggle to come up with worthwhile challenges for
characters like Superman and Hulk, Scarlet Witch could pose a similar problem.
It's one thing to have her save the day for a few moments at a time in an ensemble picture.
But on her own?
Whipping up a movie like that might be the one power she doesn't have.
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