What If...? season 1
The first season of the American animated anthology series What If...?, based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, explores alternate timelines in the multiverse that show what would happen if major moments from the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe occurred differently. The season was produced by Marvel Studios Animation, with A. C. Bradley serving as head writer and Bryan Andrews directing. Animation for the season is provided by Blue Spirit, Squeeze, Flying Bark Productions, and Stellar Creative Lab, with Stephan Franck as head of animation.
Jeffrey Wright stars as the Watcher, who narrates the series, alongside many MCU film actors reprising their roles. The series was officially announced in April 2019, with many of the cast announced that July. Bradley and Andrews were confirmed in August 2019.
The first season premiered on Disney+ on August 11, 2021, and ran for nine episodes until October 6, as part of Phase Four of the MCU. The season received generally positive reviews, with praise for the voice acting and creative storylines and scenarios but some criticism for its animation, episode length, and writing. A second season was confirmed in December 2019.
Episodes
Cast and characters
The series is narrated by Jeffrey Wright as the Watcher, a member of the alien Watcher race who observes the multiverse. Each episode features different versions of characters from the MCU films, with many actors reprising their roles for the series. The final two episodes bring together characters from earlier episodes to form the "Guardians of the Multiverse", including Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange Supreme, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter / Captain Carter, Lake Bell as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, Chadwick Boseman as Star-Lord T'Challa, Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Other new versions of characters who also return for the finale include Kurt Russell's Ego and Brian T. Delaney's Peter Quill from the second episode, Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury from the third, Ozioma Akagha's Shuri from the sixth, and Toby Jones's Arnim Zola and Ross Marquand's Ultron from the eighth. Additionally, Cynthia McWilliams and Mick Wingert appear as versions of Gamora and Tony Stark, respectively, from an episode that was cut from the first season and was released in the second as "What If... Iron Man Crashed into the Grandmaster?".Production
Development
By September 2018, Marvel Studios was developing several series for its parent company Disney's streaming service, Disney+. One of these was an animated series based on the Marvel Comics run What If...?. The anthology series, which would be produced by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, would explore how the MCU would be altered if certain events had occurred differently. Head writer A. C. Bradley joined in October 2018, after Marvel Studios was impressed that some of her pitch ideas matched with concepts they were planning for films. Director Bryan Andrews met with Brad Winderbaum, the Marvel Studios executive in charge of the series, as early as 2018; both Bradley and Andrews were officially announced in their roles in August 2019.In April 2019, Disney and Marvel officially announced the series. Winderbaum said it was not a coincidence that the series was set for release so soon after the first season finale of Loki, which introduced the multiverse, since What If...? explores facets of the multiverse in a way that Winderbaum believed made the series as important as any other MCU property; Bradley confirmed that all episodes of the series are canon to the MCU multiverse, with most of the episodes taking place in their own universe. Since work began on What If...? before the development of Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Bradley was unsure how those projects would be exploring and explaining the MCU version of the multiverse. She chose to focus on the possibilities within the alternate timelines of the multiverse, which she described as a "sampler of assorted chocolates", and left elements such as the Time Variance Authority to be explained by those other projects. Feige and Winderbaum kept the creative teams of Loki and Multiverse of Madness informed of what was happening in What If...? as work on those projects began. The creative team of What If...? met with Loki executive producers Stephen Broussard and Kevin Wright as well as WandaVision co-executive producer Mary Livanos to establish a "rule book" regarding the multiverse, its branch timelines, and nexus events.
Executive producers for the season include Winderbaum, Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Andrews, and Bradley, with Carrie Wassenaar producing. In December 2019, Feige revealed that the first season would consist of 10 episodes. However, because of the production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the tenth episode of the first season was not completed in time and moved to the second season. The episodes are approximately 30 minutes in length.
Writing
Feige explained with the series' announcement that it would take "pivotal moments" from throughout the MCU and change them. For example, the first episode features Peggy Carter taking the Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers. The writers were initially unsure if they could use Spider-Man in the series due to Sony Pictures owning the character's live-action film rights, but they were ultimately allowed to. Before considering "what if" scenarios, the writers examined all of the MCU heroes to determine "what makes them tick". They wanted to ensure that there was story potential beyond the inciting "what if" change of each episode, so they could use the different scenarios to explore "the hero behind the shield". Bradley described the series' balance between character examination and action as "Die Hard meets Wes Anderson". 30 potential episodes were conceived and written by Bradley, Andrews, Winderbaum, story editor, junior executive Simona Paparelli, and script coordinator Ryan Little. The What If...? comics provided inspiration for potential story points, as did the Ultimate Marvel comic book imprint since it was an example of a fully realized alternate universe. Bradley first created simple scenarios out of concern for the series' budget, but was told by Marvel to "go nuts". Feige chose his favorite concepts from the 30 options, which were then narrowed down to the 10 episodes for the first season. After each episode was incorrectly rumored to focus on one film from the Infinity Saga, Bradley clarified that multiple films and characters would be represented in each episode and most of the characters from all the films would appear throughout the season. Winderbaum hoped the episodes would intrigue viewers to revisit the original films, like how reading a What If comic could lead a reader to the original comic story.Each episode and its alternate storyline is introduced and concluded by the Watcher, presenting it as "a cautionary tale in the spirit of The Twilight Zone ". The episode's tones vary, with some being darker or lighter than the MCU films that they play off. For example, one episode is a political thriller, the episode centered on Stephen Strange is a "dark... tragic love story", and another allowed Bradley to "goof off" and draw inspiration from films she enjoyed when growing up such as Can't Hardly Wait and the National Lampoon films. What If...? also has a horror, a heist, and a murder mystery episodes. Various films served as touchstones for each episode, such as 1940s serials and war films for the Peggy Carter episode. Some of the writers' concepts were rejected because they matched with story ideas that Marvel already planned to use, such as Professor Hulk, an older Steve Rogers, and Pepper Potts in the Rescue suit, who all appear in Avengers: Endgame ; Loki becoming a hero as he does in Loki; Jane Foster becoming Thor, which was planned for Thor: Love and Thunder ; and an episode that was "half the plot" of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Other unused pitches include an episode where Spider-Man turns into a real spider that was deemed "too dark and too body horror" for Marvel's target PG-13/TV-14 rating; a Jurassic Park -inspired episode featuring the Avengers as dinosaurs during prehistory; and a crossover with Star Wars characters like Luke Skywalker.
Despite the series' anthology format, the writers conceived a story device for the first season that allowed them to have some connectivity between the episodes; this begins to be revealed in the season's eighth episode before the finale in the ninth. Additionally, after the Watcher begins the season distant and appearing in the background, he becomes more apparent as the season progresses. Bradley likened the character to the audience, since "as he suffers triumphs and their tragedies, he becomes also more emotionally invested, and therefore becomes more and more part of their world and wants to be more part of their world even though he knows he's not supposed to". Each episode also ends with a twist or question that could potentially be resolved in a sequel episode, similar to the MCU films' post-credit scenes, though these endings are also a reference to the twist endings of the What If...? comics that were not always resolved. Bradley called these endings "fun" while differentiating them from post-credit teasers which she considered "a promise". Many of the endings for the first season's episodes are resolved in the final episode of the season. Regarding the dark tones and tragic plot points of the first season, Bradley explained that being able to feature things that would never happen in the live-action MCU, such as killing off heroes, was the "most liberating part" of the series, and that some of the episodes ended in tragedy for reasons tied into the first season's overall plan. As the writers were developing the scripts, they realized that Captain Carter would "bubble up and became more important" alongside the Watcher, and decided to revisit her story in each future season. Bradley was asked to only explore "what if" concepts for existing MCU stories, so Phase Four characters do not appear until the second season.