Marvel's What If...? Season 2 Probably Won't Remix Any Disney+ TV Shows
The premise of Marvel's "What If...?" animated series finds a cosmic being known as The Watcher observing alternate universe stories inspired by the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the MCU has been expanding with a whole new roster of TV shows that have been debuting exclusively on Disney+. "WandaVision," "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier," and "Loki," have expanded the MCU in surprising ways. In fact, "Loki" basically paved the way for "What If...?" to be part of the rest of the MCU, albeit in animated form. But it sounds unlikely that we'll see the second season of "What If...?" playing with the stories in Marvel's Disney+ shows.
Blame the Production Timeline
After the first season finale for Marvel's "What If...?" debuted today, we spoke with director Bryan Andrews and head writer A.C. Bradley about the episode and what might be in store for the second season that's already in the works. During the interview (which is coming soon in full), we asked whether the new Marvel Studios TV shows on Disney+ were on the table to potentially be played with in future episodes of "What If...?" In short, the answer is yes, but it doesn't sound like that's something that will happen in the second season. Andrews said:
"I imagine at some point. The thing is we were doing even our season two stuff while they were still making those. So they were kind of off market for us at the time. But knock on wood, if we get to do more, who knows? But I think anything that's going on in the MCU and that includes those shows, at some point, could be fertile, valid ground for us to go play on. You know what I mean? So we'll see. Who knows? Time will tell. But I think as long as it's in the cinematic universe, there's a chance."
So it sounds like the crew of Marvel's "What If...?" isn't necessarily privy to what's going on behind the scenes the upcoming projects Marvel Studios has yet to release. Since they were working on season two at the same time "WandaVision," "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier," and "Loki" were in production, they couldn't incorporate anything that was happening in those shows. That means the earliest we might see some remixing of the Disney+ originals would be in a third season.
The good news is most of the timelines in each universe that we've seen in the first season of "What If...?" haven't gotten close to the later movies of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though the zombie episode did broach "Avengers: Infinity War" territory and the Tony Stark/Erik Killmonger episode veered into "Black Panther" a bit, most of the other universes are still kicking around in Phase One or Phase Two. However, as we recently heard, the second season may include the likes of "Shang-Chi," "Eternals" and "Black Widow," so they won't be super limited in which stories they can play with. Plus, Gamora's episode will be debuting in season 2 as well.
As of now, we're not sure when to expect the second season of Marvel's "What If...?" but we do have some guesses. Stay tuned for more soon.