'Agatha All Along' EP Mary Livanos Talks Title Journey; Joe Locke On Role Prying
Find out the Marvel Studios miniseries’s solidified release schedule!
The September 18 two-episode premiere of Marvel Studios’s Agatha All Along is fast approaching, which means the press tour is certainly heating up. Talk show appearances aplenty, like Kathryn Hahn on The Tonight Show, Aubrey Plaza and Patti LuPone doing Hot Ones Versus and Sasheer Zamata’s come out as a “late-in-life” lesbian. Good for her! But everyone’s talking, especially executive producer Mary Livanos, and Joe Locke, who plays the character simply known as “Teen”.
Livanos was one of Marvel Studios’s executives who worked on WandaVision and was tasked with spinning it off to make Agatha All Along. But as it turns out, all of the previous titles, whether House of Harkness, Coven of Chaos, Darkhold Diaries, and more obviously The Lying Witch With Great Wardrobe weren’t working titles, they were fake titles with no backing of reality. “Hats off to Jac Shaeffer on that one, and our incredible writers’ room, with the best day of brainstorming I think we’ve ever had, figuring out all those titles,” Livanos revealed. “It was a real blast to release crazier and crazier ones as the production went on, and our cast was so game, too. The nature of the stunt felt very Agatha.”
Livanos also discussed following up the Emmy-winning song that lent its name to the spinoff series, and how “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” differs, saying “Well, after “Agatha All Along” beat Justin Bieber on the music charts, we knew that we had to find a way to work with the Lopezes again, especially because they’re so lovely to work with. Their songwriting just enhanced the texture of WandaVision so much, and we were really looking to find a way to do that again, so we strived to do so. But the role that “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” narratively takes over the course of the show just grows and grows, and I’m very excited for fans to uncover exactly how it compounds.” She subsequently laments the loss of the Warner Ranch before its closure “We loved shooting on Blondie Street at the incredible and historic Warner Bros. Ranch. Agatha’s house is the house that was featured in Bewitched. So we were very, very lucky to shoot there, and we’ll miss it.”
Schaeffer meanwhile learned quite a bit about the nature of fan theories over the course of WandaVision thanks to the inundation of them in its eight-week run. So this time around she took extra measures to mitigate such, especially with the mere presence of Teen. whenever Teen tries to bring up who he is, his mouth gets sewn up, and no that wasn’t a trailer exclusive clip, there may even be other methods like a big loud truck passing by, but it seems it hasn’t been enough. The prevailing theory is of course that he’s Billy Kaplan, Wanda’s son in the comics. I’ve even referred to him as such before the definitive “Teen” moniker came in. Locke has been doing his best to help guard the secrets. One of the things I love about Marvel is you keep all these secrets that are really frustrating at first, especially when you’re doing things like this [press day]. But the reason you keep them is because if you were to tell them, then it wouldn’t have the same effect when it all comes out. The secrets are secrets for a reason, and Teen’s backstory is an interesting one. If I was able to talk about it now, it would ruin the whole point of the show, and that is what keeps me being able to keep a secret. Otherwise, I’d just tell you everything.” he remarks, revealing he does have actual lines in those moments. He also reveals he’s had “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” stuck in his head seemingly since he first heard it on set almost two years ago. Character posters released Friday are of no help, especially nudging in the Billy direction, as he’s wearing Wiccan (Billy’s hero moniker)’s outfit.
As stated, Agatha All Along premieres Wednesday, September 18 in Disney+’s favored 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific timeslot with its first two episodes. Episodes will roll out weekly over the next five weeks, as revealed Friday afternoon. The series will not overflow past Halloween, instead releasing the ninth episode, the series finale (it’s being called a trilogy with WandaVision and the 2026 Vision series) with episode 8 on October 30, making a two-episode finale. I had actually suspected such back at the end of July on Twitter, and was reminded.
