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WandaVision director reveals deleted scene that featured Goonies-style action and ... Agatha's rabbit?!
Hey, you guys! Now that WandaVision is officially over, Matt Shakman can spill all the juicy secrets about the making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe project. Recently appearing on Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin's Fatman Beyond podcast, the director opened up about a deleted scene involving Agatha Harkness' (Kathryn Hahn) pet rabbit, Señor Scratchy.
The sequence, which would have shown up in the finale, would have featured more of Monica (Teyonah Parris), Darcy (Kat Dennings), and Ralph (Evan Peters), but was ultimately dropped due to the fact that the episode "had so many different chess pieces" already in play. Nevertheless, Shakman went super in-depth, revealing that the footage involved our heroes attempting to steal the Darkhold from Agatha's basement along with Wanda's two sons: Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne).
"The kids had seen it down there when they were being held hostage by Agatha. They go down to get the book and they’re reaching for the book and the rabbit hops up in front of the book," he said. "And they’re like, 'Oh it’s Señor Scratchy, he’s the best!' And they reach over to pet him and he hisses and this whole American Werewolf in London transformation happens where the rabbit turns into this big demon. Into her familiar. And then a Goonies set piece ensues with all sorts of fun where they try to escape from the rabbit. We shot it, but didn’t finish all the VFX and stuff for it. It was a great sequence, it was super fun, everyone was great in it, but we ended up moving it aside because it was a huge detour in the middle of everything else we had going."
"I look forward to the 12-hour Matt Shakman cut of WandaVision," Bernardin joked.
In all seriousness, though, Señor Scratchy's demon moment would have been a direct callback to the comics, where Agatha does have a familiar — a black cat named Ebony. In Agatha's first-ever appearance (1961's Fantastic Four #94), Ebony helps protect young Franklin Richards from the Frightful Four by turning into a massive and horrifying feline monster.
"The scripts changed. Things were constantly changing and getting re-broken ... especially a lot of the real-world stuff and finale," Shakman said. "There was a lot of experimentation going on and trying different things out. We also, at one point, had 10 episodes planned and ended up collapsing a couple just to make the rhythm feel a little bit better. And then, of course, once we wrapped in Atlanta, the pandemic hit and we ended up having months off and so, further changes happened during that. Ideas would come up [during post-production] and little changes would happen."
All nine episodes of WandaVision are now streaming on Disney+. A making-of documentary (the first installment in Marvel Studios' Assembled series) arrives on the streaming platform this Friday, March 12. The second MCU show — The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — premieres the following Friday, March 19.
