Elizabeth Olsen spotted at U.K. airport, sparking rumors of Scarlet Witch's return

Marvel Studios runs its ensemble casting like a classified op — and the excitement around any unannounced, surprise cameo appearances in the next MCU movies, Avengers: Doomsday (2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027), is starting to reach a fever pitch, with die-hard fans hunting for any hint of their favorite character's return. And one of the more active fandoms on the hunt is the Wanda Stans, who've been treating every airport sighting of (or offhand comment from) the actress like a smoking gun. The latest name in the crosshairs: Elizabeth Olsen, who has played the fan-favorite reality-shaping witch with a chip on her shoulder, Wanda Maximoff, since the character's MCU debut in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) mid-credits scene.

According to rumors earlier this week, Olsen is in the United Kingdom, where filming for Secret Wars is expected to begin soon. And given that Wanda's fate was left unresolved at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with the destruction of Mount Wundagore, it's no surprise the internet's Wanda Stans ran with it. If the online rumors prove accurate, Secret Wars could finally reveal what happened to Wanda and bring her back for one of the MCU's biggest multiverse events yet. 

Worth noting up front: this is fan-sourced speculation, not a studio confirmation; neither Marvel, Olsen, nor her team has confirmed the character's return, and Olsen wasn't previously reported as being on the Secret Wars cast list, which reportedly includes Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Bettany, Letitia Wright, Simu Liu, Hayley Atwell, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Sadie Sink. But the timing — with Secret Wars gearing up as the back half of the Russo brothers' Avengers double feature — is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.

Olsen herself hasn't exactly closed the door on the theory, either. Back when Doomsday was ramping up production, she told The Hollywood Reporter she had no plans to stay in London for the shoot, and instead, she was heading home to shoot an FX pilot instead. Fairly definitive, except Marvel actors have a long history of running interference on spoilers — so nothing they say can really be trusted until you see the character's absence for yourself. More recently, pressed once again on where things stand, Olsen kept it vague, saying only that she knows nothing, nothing at all, about either film, per Pearl and Dean.

None of that has slowed the demand for Wanda's return. She's remained one of the most requested comebacks since Multiverse of Madness, and Olsen has said before she'd welcome another shot at the role if Marvel came calling.

“It’s ridiculous,” she told InStyle of making MCU movies. “We're grown people behaving like children on a playground. We're flying. We're shooting things out of our hands. And it’s a character that I've gotten to return to so many times over 10 years. It’s good to put her down and then I miss her and I want her back. I'd jump at the opportunity to be in her shoes again.”

Rumors of Scarlet Witch's return are fan-favorite speculation

This isn't the first time Wanda's comeback has surfaced this cycle. 

A separate rumor from insider MyTimeToShineHello made the rounds in late August, tying Olsen to Avengers: Doomsday rather than Secret Wars, a report that gained steam after Jennifer White, Olsen's longtime movement coach and stunt double, shared a Marvel-related post during a stretch of additional photography on Doomsday. Some claimed White had been filming in an outfit resembling one of Wanda's old costumes, though Marvel never confirmed it. 

More recently, insider Alex Perez, via The Cosmic Circus, reported that Secret Wars will reunite the entire Maximoff family, with the storyline drawing heavily from the Avengers: The Children's Crusade comics. In that arc, the Young Avengers go searching for a vanished Scarlet Witch, only to find her in Latveria — memory-wiped and on the verge of marrying Doctor Doom. Per Perez, Wanda made a desperate bargain with Doom to be reunited with her children after their disappearance, a deal that ultimately let him harness her powers and nearly seize control of reality itself. If that blueprint holds, Doom's Secret Wars plan to construct Battleworld out of the collapsing multiverse could hinge on siphoning Wanda's power the same way.

The theory also frames WandaVision, Agatha All Along, and the upcoming VisionQuest as essential viewing ahead of Secret Wars, given how deeply each digs into magic, runes, and Wanda's abilities — with Agatha herself reportedly factoring into the new films. One plausible structure: the Young Avengers assemble in Doomsday, then track down and reunite with Wanda in Secret Wars. And despite the MCU's habit of dour, high-body-count endings, other reporting suggests the Maximoffs may actually get a happy ending this time — Wanda reunited with Vision, Billy, and Tommy.

Fan-spotted "Latverian Witch" costumes from Doom's homeland, first glimpsed at San Diego Comic-Con, have only fueled speculation that Wanda is hiding in plain sight inside one of them. But whether these rumors become an actual reveal or fade into the pile of dead-end casting rumors and fan theories remains to be seen.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters December 18, 2026, with Secret Wars the following year, giving Marvel plenty of runway to either confirm or quietly bury the speculation.

Source: Comic Basics