We’re only two episodes into Marvel’s What If…?, with the third not premiering on Disney Plus until tomorrow, but as the biggest and most popular franchise on the planet, you can guarantee that the studio are already two or three steps ahead in terms of planning what comes next.
Season 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first foray into animation had already been announced before the first episode of the show had even aired, while Kevin Feige confirmed that the next batch of multiversal adventures will incorporate elements of Phase Four movies into their stories.
Vice President of Production Victoria Alonso also teased that an entire studio designed solely to focus on animated Disney Plus projects is in the offing, so it’s all systems go for the latest stage of the MCU’s unstoppable expansion. There’s no timeline on when we can expect What If…? to return just yet, but in a new interview executive producer Brad Winderbaum hinted that it could be as early as 2022.
“As you know with animation, it takes a long time to produce. We were fortunate enough to get the green light on a second season early enough to have a chance to release it next year. We’ll see what happens. Obviously, I don’t want to predict the future with this new world we live in, but our intention is to make it an annual release.”
Given that Loki and What If…? are the only MCU shows to have been renewed so far, and the mythology just began the move into episodic storytelling at the beginning of this year, it’s hard to gauge how long the turnaround will be between seasons. Tom Hiddleston’s time traveling mystery began shooting in February 2020 and didn’t arrive until sixteen months later, and animation is a notoriously time-consuming process. 2022 is certainly an ambitious goal, but not a completely unrealistic one when ideas are already being tossed around behind the scenes, without forgetting that Marvel’s What If…? comes powered by the combined might of the Disney/Marvel machine.
