Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, Elizabeth Olsen is now claiming that she will not return as Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, for Marvel Studios' next Avengers movies.
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are set to shoot back-to-back (with a short break in-between) in the U.K. next month, but Olsen revealed that she will be back home in the U.S. filming a new project when cameras start rolling while speaking to THR about her new movie, The Assessment.
"I didn’t realize this until about six years ago, but because Marvel and its influence takes up so much physical time and space in the world, it’s really important for me to make choices outside of Marvel that reflect my own taste," Olsen told the site. "Your taste does create the artist that you are, and that wasn’t something I was thinking about when I first started working. I was just grateful to be a working actor. I wanted to stretch myself into different roles, and I wasn’t really thinking about my taste. So the opportunity to return to films like this is a reflection of the people I want to work with and my own personal taste in ways, even if I’m not the filmmaker."
"No," she responded when asked if she'd be staying on in London to film the upcoming MCU event films. "I’m back [in the States]. I just finished [Panic Carefully]. I’m moving on to filming a pilot for FX [called Seven Sisters]."
Olsen has dropped numerous hints that she will reprise her role as Wanda at some point, however.
"It’s really unusual," said the WandaVision star when asked how it feels to play a character for so long in live-action and animation. "It’s something that’s been incredible. I assume it’s how people feel when they get to do a TV show for a long time. To be able to return to a character and continue to move them forward has been so much fun for me, especially because they gave me something like WandaVision to really blow it all up. And from there, Doctor Strange was such a wild and crazy turn. I do feel very lucky that I’ve been able to play a character for over 10 years of my life, and I’d love to keep doing more. But the animation thing, I feel like it’s a parallel world. I don’t really know how it intersects with what we do. But I’ve really enjoyed getting to play her over 10 years, and I continue to feel lucky that I have the opportunities I did, creatively."
It's fair to say that not too many people believe that Olsen won't show up in at least one of these movies, but for the time being, all we can do is take her at her word.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027. Both films will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Being able to create stories and explore characters within the Marvel Universe fulfilled a life-long dream of ours, and we discovered a powerful connection with audiences in each film that we made. We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with Kevin, Lou and the entire Marvel team to bring this epic adventure in storytelling to new and surprising places for both the fans and ourselves”, said The Russos in a statement after the SDCC panel.