Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron has explained why Wanda is so different in the movie. Major spoilers ahead!
In the film, Wanda has shifted from the former-Avenger we know and love to an out and out villain as the Scarlet Witch, who is chasing America Chavez through the multiverse to steal her reality-traversing powers, which would allow Wanda to reunite with her lost children Billy and Tommy Maximoff.
"Well, first off, it's true to who the comics' version of the character is and what she does in the comics," Waldron told Rolling Stone. "It was always where Wanda was headed in the MCU, even as I inherited the movie. The question just became, when would it happen? Certainly, there was a version of this movie where Wanda was part of the ensemble that ended, I guess, with her turning bad, and then she could have been an antagonist of another movie. But I feel like in that case, you would have had a watered-down version of Wanda going bad because it’s still Doctor Strange's movie. She wouldn't be the protagonist, and she wouldn't really be the antagonist. You'd have to have a [different] antagonist throughout the entirety of most of the film."
The last time we saw Wanda was the WandaVision season finale, when she brought down the Hex – the magical forcefield surrounding Westview trapping everyone inside Wanda's idyllic version of reality – and in the process destroyed her newly built family. She then retreated to a cottage in the forest to study the Darkhold, an ancient and evil spell book she acquired from fellow witch Agatha Harkness.
Waldron doesn't think the film conflicts with the Disney Plus show, though. "You know, she's doing bad stuff throughout WandaVision. She does make the heroic choice to let go of all those people. But it's also revealed to her that the family she's built is not real. Then she gets the Darkhold at the end of the series and learns that there is a real version of her children out there. And if you've got the Book of the Damned whispering in your ear long enough that your kids are out there and you could go get 'em, maybe that can push you to do some terrible things."
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