Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has confirmed season 2 of Marvel's What If...? - the upcoming animated series exploring alternate realities where important events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe played out (very) differently - is already in the works, ahead of the show's premiere in 2021. The show is one of several developing MCU series set to stream exclusively through Disney+, along with live-action series like the currently-filming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. And as with the other Disney+ MCU shows revealed so far, Marvel's What If...? will be canon to the franchise (if in a different sense).
Back at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, no fewer than 25 MCU Phase 1-3 movie actors were confirmed to be reprising their roles for Marvel's What If...?, including Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Hayley Atwell, Michael B. Jordan, and Natalie Portman. Season 1 will span ten episodes and feature Jeffrey Wright as Uatu/The Watcher, a powerful extraterrestrial who narrates the series and, occasionally, even intervenes in its alternate reality storylines. Marvel Studios and Disney are clearly expecting the show to go over well, too, having already started to work on the second installment.
Feige offered an update on Marvel's What If...? during a recent interview with Buzzfeed Brasil, saying "We have ten [episodes] for season 1, we're already working on the next ten for season 2." He went on to confirm he's seen most of season 1 by this point, including the "very exciting" first episode set in a world where Peggy Carter, and not Steve Rogers, took the Super-Soldier Serum and became a Captain America-esque superhero (albeit, a British-y one who dresses like Captain Britain from the Marvel Comics universe).
Among the other alternate scenarios confirmed for Marvel's What If...? season 1 so far are T'Challa (and not Peter Quill) becoming Star-Lord, and Captain America transforming into a zombie and battling the Winter Soldier. The only What If...? scenario that's been firmly ruled out for the show is Jane Foster wielding Mjolnir, though that's only because the Jane Foster Thor comic book storyline is being adapted for Taika Waititi's 2021 MCU sequel, Thor: Love & Thunder. There's really no shortage of multiverse situations for the TV series to adapt based on the twenty-three MCU films released as part of Phase 1-3, so it shouldn't be difficult for the show to come up with enough fresh and fascinating material to fill at least two seasons, if not more.
This isn't the first time a Disney+ series started developing its second season before it even drops, either. Production on The Mandalorian season 2 got underway prior to the show's debut on Disney+'s launch day in November, based on the assumption season 1 would be a hit (which it has been). It stands to reason Marvel's What If...? could be just as popular, simply going by how much MCU fans love theorizing and imagining "What If?" scenarios on their own time. And since its seasons take longer to complete due to the demands of their animation, that's all the more reason to get the ball rolling on season 2 so early.
Source: Buzzfeed Brasil