Marvel’s What If…? creators talk Twilight Zone, pizza rat, and Chadwick Boseman as Star-Lord
Disney+'s animated MCU anthology series is coming on August 11
TV News Chadwick Boseman
The season finale of Disney+’s Loki ended with the God Of Mischief witnessing the expansion of the multiverse, with infinite timelines spiraling out of infinite realities. We know the repercussions of that are going to play out in the next Spider-Man and Doctor Strange movies, but we’re actually going to see the payoff much sooner: Marvel’s What If…? series, premiering on Disney+ on August 11, is all about what’s happening in that multiverse and all the wacky and/or horrifying realities contained within. During a press conference today with the show’s creators, plus star Jeffrey Wright, producer Brad Winderbaum teased that it’s “no coincidence” that the show is coming out right after Loki. While everyone involved was predictably cagey about whether or not any of the characters introduced would ever make the transition to live-action, he did tease that a second season is in the works and that it will feature the return of Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter—who makes her debut in the show’s first episode and was all over the trailers that have been released.
The basic setup of the show is that it’s an anthology of alternate reality stories in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with multiple people involved referring to it as an MCU version of The Twilight Zone. If that’s the case, then Jeffrey Wright’s Watcher is the Rod Serling: He’s an extra-dimensional being who sits back and watches the various realities and is never supposed to intervene in what happens within them, narrating the beginning and end of each episode. Wright describes him as “the biggest Marvel fan there is,” because his entire existence is about watching superheroes and seeing how they respond to different situations in different timelines, and while Wright’s performance is somewhat intense, he doesn’t view people like Captain Carter as a novelty who exist just to be observed. He “adores them,” Wright says, because they give his life purpose by giving him something to watch and care about and trust—much like how Marvel fans might be drawn to the MCU because its characters are dependable and the real world isn’t necessarily easy to depend on.
Writer A.C. Bradley says her initial impression of The Watcher was that he looked at the superheroes of the multiverse the way we looked at pizza rat, in the sense that we love seeing it and may root for it to get that pizza, but we would never step in and touch it or really care about what happens to it. Once Wright came on board and talked about seeing Marvel movies with his kid, though, Bradley says the writers realized The Watcher should be more devoted to the regular people of the multiverse and be more of a dad than an emotionless observer.
But aside from The Watcher, the most exciting thing about What If…? is that it will feature Chadwick Boseman’s final performance as T’Challa. This is the multiverse, though, so T’Challa doesn’t grow up to be the Black Panther and the king of Wakanda on this show. Instead, he gets accidentally picked up by Yondu’s Ravagers when they go to kidnap young Peter Quill (because all humans look alike, you see) and—in one of What If…?’s more unexpected turns—he ends up becoming Star-Lord. Bradley says they broke this story by looking at a big poster of all the MCU characters they wanted to include and realizing that T’Challa and Peter Quill are basically the same age. From there, they recognized that T’Challa is a character who changes the world around him, rather than being changed by it, so sending someone like that into a completely new and different environment would be a good way to shine new light on T’Challa.
It was such a good way, in fact, that it apparently convinced Boseman to be one of the first MCU actors to agree to sign on for What If…? (there are many others, but Marvel Studios is being quiet about the official cast). Director Bryan Andrews says Boseman was drawn to the idea of playing T’Challa as Star-Lord because “he was the king without the mantle” and could have a little more fun as a distinctly sillier version of the character. Wright, meanwhile, seems very touched that he had an opportunity to work on a project that Boseman also worked on, saying they had met for the first time at a San Diego Comic-Con bathroom and were initially supposed to be appear onscreen together in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom until Wright had to back out. He also notes that the “mythic quality” of Boseman’s work as T’Challa “paled in comparison to the mythic quality of his life.”
23 Comments
I don’t know about you, but I was far from emotionless while observing pizza rat.
I’m just hoping we get some truly weird and out their concepts for “What if…?” that probably would never happen otherwise.Like “What if Spider-Man’s Clone Lived?”…
I’m just hoping Jeffrey Wright reenacts this cover.
I’m sad that it’s just a voice role.
The Watcher never interferes, huh? I seem to distinctly remember the Cosmic Ghost Rider beating the shit out of him for just that and I’ll bet it’s not the only time someone’s had a go either!
Oops, I meant to post this here!The Watcher never interferes, huh? I seem to distinctly remember the Cosmic Ghost Rider beating the shit out of him for just that and I’ll bet it’s not the only time someone’s had a go either!
there’s an alternate universe where you never double-posted. Think about it.
The Watcher is a bullsh*tter, doesn’t he interfere during the first appearance of Galactus?
He’s the one who sends Human Torch off to Galen’s ship to find the Ultimate Nullifier.
id like that too, but it looks like theyre only doing stories from the movie universe.
Who thinks they got MaGuire and/or Garfield to voice their spideys in this?
Really doubt it. So far it mostly looks like alternate versions of movie stuff people have already seen in the MCU.
I was really excited for this as I loved the What If comics, but then the initial teasers came out and I saw how it looked. But I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, maybe that was just the teasers, maybe they will improve. Nope, still looks bland and cheap. Not enough detail in the characters and the animation is stiff. With all the money they are spending on the live action shows, this seems like an after thought. Fercrissakes this is Disney, they couldn’t put any of their quality animators on this thing? Has there been ANY good Marvel animated stuff in the last decade+ other than the unceremoniously cancelled (and replaced with a much shittier Avengers cartoon) Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?
The T’Challa episode is going to be a bummer. Not cause it’s bad but because it’s the last gift Chadwick Boseman has to give us.
isnt’ the lesson to be learned, that there’s an infinite number of universes out there, and in many of them, he’s still alive, making movies? Don’t be selfish.
I teared up watching the trailer because I hadn’t heard he was in it.
I thought they were talking about Lucky Rat, the conveniently placed rodent that saved the universe after the Avengers failed, aka the strongest Avenger, aka the stupid gag that divorced the Avengers from any agency over their ultimate “win.”I know, I’ll show myself out.
What If the Corman FF Got a Theatrical Release?
Spruce up the special effects, maybe do some ADR and release it to the public.Hands down the most faithful and best version of FF. I say that as someone who doesn’t hate the Tim Story’s films.
If they are doing multiple seasons there’s no reason not to visit the Framework universe from Agents of SHIELD. Do it, you cowards.I’m sorry. Please, do it, you cowards.
A hastily written episode has been added to the roster just recently: “What If Scarlett Johansson just shut up and was thankful for what she already got for Chrissakes?”
They know that Pizza Rat was staged right?
Like, the Watcher might not want to interfere with the heroes the way we don’t want to interfere with Pizza Rat, but meanwhile Kang is already pulling the strings and making the heroes dance to his marionette strings the way that Zardulu has trained Pizza Rat to get the slice…
They know that Pizza Rat was staged right?
Like, the Watcher
might not want to interfere with the heroes the way we don’t want to
interfere with Pizza Rat, but meanwhile Kang is already pulling the
strings and making the heroes dance to his marionette strings the way
that Zardulu has trained Pizza Rat to get the slice…