Ahead of this Wednesday's eagerly-awaited What If... ? premiere, we sat down with director Bryan Andrews and writer A.C. Bradley to get some much-needed intel on arguably the most inventive Marvel Studios production yet.
With the series set to be a true anthology, every episode will follow different characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe we know and twist their fates to create a whole new adventure, with little connective tissue between the individual episodes and multiple variants appearing throughout the course of the season. This means potential follow-ups to some of the stories we watch this season may not come until Season 2 or beyond.
Speaking with Bradley, she tells us that, despite the marketing, they're not really building toward any Endgame-level event this season, instead treating each episode as its own movie with its own set of characters. This essentially means that each installment is set in its own unique universe.
"Well, the beauty of What If is we’re seeing basically ten bite-sized Marvel movies, now as for where these character’s arcs go in future episodes if we do get to see them again, kind of do sequel episodes, I would love that, but it’s kind of like the movies themselves.
Each episode should feel like a movie and if we get to do a sequel, well, aren’t we just lucky kids and I would say there was no greater huge plan. The idea was that these characters should be rich enough and full enough and the worlds are so bursting with life, that if we wanted to go forward, we can."
As for those recent rumors about Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) and other characters from the series possibly making their live-action debuts in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness next year, Bradley admits she's also seen the same internet buzz and while she'd love to see it happen, she tells us that at the moment, she doesn't know much more than we do.
"I’ve been reading the What If rumors myself and I hope they’re true, I would love to see these characters, especially Captain Carter and The Watcher live on in the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that’s for Kevin Feige, our Watcher, to decide."