‘What If…?’ Director Bryan Andrews On Creating The Evil Doctor Strange And How The Next Seasons Will Be “A Little Bit Wilder”
17.08.2022 - 20:01
/ deadline.com
When executive producer Brad Winderbaum had the idea for an animated Marvel anthology series, he knew he needed director Bryan Andrews for the job. Based on the Marvel comic series of the same name, What If…? explores how small changes at pivotal moments in the MCU could change everything. While they began with small moments in the first season, Andrews says the series, which is renewed for two more seasons, is going to get more and more wild. What If…? is nominated for three Emmys, including a Outstanding Animated Program for the fourth episode, “What if… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead Of His Hands?”
DEADLINE: Where did the idea for a Marvel anthology series come from?
BRYAN ANDREWS: It came from Brad Winderbaum, who was like, Hey, maybe doing What If…? would be awesome? Those comics were pretty cool and we could probably do it in animation, so it doesn’t cost, you know, a trillion dollars like it would if they did it all live action, with each episode being different and on that same scale.
DEADLINE: Was it easy to narrow down the first nine episodes into those specific stories or was that a huge process?
ANDREWS: It was a process, but it was pretty amazing coming up with them all once we got our head writer involved. She brought in one of her partners, Matt [Chauncey], so it was AC [Bradley] and Matt and then Brad and myself, and we would sit and just spitball. And we just got an embarrassment of riches. We got so many episode ideas, and Kevin [Feige] was like, “Just gimme a list of like 30.” And then Kevin couldn’t even whittle it down. I think it ended up being 14, and we had to kill the last few to try to get it down to the actual number. But funnily enough, there were ideas that just kept staying around, so a