Marvel Television's original plan for VisionQuest called for WandaVision and Agatha All Along mastermind Jac Schaeffer to return to complete her trilogy. Instead, she's moved on to other projects, leaving Star Trek: Picard's Terry Matalas to continue the stories of Vision and Tommy Maximoff.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Paul Bettany put Schaeffer's departure down to "personal reasons" and admitted that parting ways with the WandaVision architect wasn't easy.
"I felt like the rug had been pulled from under my feet," he told the site. "I love her very much, and we made a lovely thing together. I had been waiting and looking forward to having my turn with Jac. And then 24 hours later, I was at a lunch with Terry, because that’s the speed at which Marvel moves."
Matalas' approach was to concentrate on "intergenerational digital trauma," and Bettany says he was sold as soon as the showrunner suggested bringing James Spader back into the fold as Ultron.
"Then the question was, 'Would he do it?' But I was pretty confident that he would because it’s so eccentric and Terry’s so eccentric in the way that he thinks. Once we had James on board, we had a grandfather, a father, and a son."
Describing the Avengers: Age of Ultron villain as "this psychopath that he’s keeping locked away upstairs in the attic," Bettany likened him to "a psychotic psychotherapist."
The actor continued, "There are a couple of things you can do with robots. One of them is, 'I’m a real boy now.' That can be part of it, but the other thing that you can do, that I think would be quite interesting, is Frankenstein. 'Who am I? Who made me? What am I for? What’s my purpose? How do I fit in this world I’ve found myself in?'"
The report also reveals new plot details, including the fact that White Vision has all his predecessor's memories but no emotional attachment to them. He's been living a normal life among humans, but as Bettany puts it, "That all gets blown to hell when a bounty’s put on his head and he is pushed out into the world in a much more visible way."
However, while this may be the end of the story that started in WandaVision, it also creates "a springboard for where Vision might go" and "feels like the beginning of something for a new type of Vision," teases Bettany.
Some new VisionQuest stills have also been released, which you can check out below.
In VisionQuest, Vision, rebooted and having escaped from those who sought to weaponise him, has been in hiding. Searching for new meaning, he consults the AI personas embedded in his programming, including F.R.I.D.A.Y., E.D.I.T.H., J.A.R.V.I.S., and the infamous Ultron.
His discreet existence ends when a bounty placed on his head thrusts him on the run with Thomas Shepard, a mysterious boy who may be Vision's son, reincarnated. As Vision evades capture, he must confront his nature, resist Ultron's influence, and unravel the enigma that is his young companion if he’s to survive.
VisionQuest stars Paul Bettany, James Spader, Ruaridh Mollica, Todd Stashwick, T'Nia Miller, Lauren Morais, Orla Brady, Diane Morgan, Polly Frame, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, with Emily Hampshire and James D'Arcy.
The series is directed by Christopher J. Byrne, Gandja Monteiro, Vincenzo Natali, Terry Matalas, and written by Terry Matalas, Cindy Appel, Christopher Monfette, Nicole Falsetti, and Matthew Okumura.
VisionQuest is created for television by Terry Matalas, based on the Marvel Comics. The executive producers are Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Mary Livanos, Terry Matalas, Jac Schaeffer, and Christopher J. Byrne, and the producer is Roopesh Parekh.
The series premieres on Disney+ on October 14.