Disney Plus animated series What If…? featured over 50 returning Marvel Cinematic Universe stars, ranging from some of the franchise’s biggest hitters to minor background players who hardly factored into their respective movie appearances at all.
However, there were several notable absentees, and two in particular stood out. Given that Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson were no longer under contract, it wasn’t a surprise that they didn’t return for What If…?, while the belief is that Sony were the ones responsible for withholding Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.
Dave Bautista didn’t appear as Drax, apparently because nobody from Marvel had asked him to, while Brie Larson was replaced as Captain Marvel by Alexandra Daniels, who ended up playing a fairly significant role in the series after showing up in several episodes.
Speaking during a Twitch stream, Daniels revealed her surprise and excitement at getting to follow in Larson’s footsteps as one of the most powerful superheroes in the world’s biggest franchise.
“When I auditioned they were looking for a Brie Larson voice double. So they sent a clip of Brie Larson from the movie and I was like cool, I can do that and I did it and like a month later they were like you booked it. And that was my first voice over job ever. I thought I was going to just be like Brie Larson’s voice double, I’m not going to get any credit, they’re going to say it was her. Until the day the first episode came out and it had my name, my agents were like you can’t talk about it, you can’t say anything, you cant promote yourself, you can’t do anything until we see it’s you or Brie Larson.
And there I was with the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Mark Ruffalo and I was like OK this is cool, this is not a thing I expected for my life. Because it’s Disney, they don’t give you the episodes, they just give you your lines, well, my scenes […] and then you’re in a big room, a giant sound studio, and it’s just you standing there and they hadn’t done any of the animation yet so you’re like thinking about what it was gonna look like in your brain, imagining how they wanted it to be and wingin’ it.”
With Season 2 of What If…? officially confirmed at last weeks Disney Plus Day, it remains to be seen if Daniels will be back as Captain Marvel, or the top brass will put their hands in their pockets to pay for Larson’s involvement, which isn’t out of the question when she’s recently filmed a project for a cruise ship.
