A What If…? Storyline Was Rejected Because It’s Already Half the Plot of Guardians of the Galaxy 3

A What If…? storyline pitched by the head writer of the show was rejected because it was already half the plot of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3.

During a junket for the upcoming Marvel series, IGN sat down with What If…? creator A.C. Bradley and director Bryan Andrews to pick their brains on the show. But while trying to untangle how What If…? fits into the overall MCU, we discovered some plot points were rejected because Marvel was working on those storylines elsewhere, specifically Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

“I’m going to stay away from that question,” Bradley says when IGN asked for more details on the Watchers. The reasoning is because Bradley says they spent three days on a storyline tackling the character then, “walked [executive producer] Brad Winderbaum through all my hard work only to find out I accidentally pitched the back half of [Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3].”

“So I stay away from Mr. James Gunn and his brilliance and his work, and I did go home after that day and cracked open a beer and be like, ‘well that’s going to be an amazing movie but now I gotta go back to the drawing board.'”

So while we couldn’t get more details on how the Watchers will fit into What If…? We did get a confirmation from Bradley that despite the shenanigans in What If…? The series is part of the MCU canon and fits into the larger multiverse set up by the Loki finale.

This wasn’t the only time Bradley ran into this problem, though. SlashFilm points out, in a different interview with The Direct, Bradley said she pitched What If storylines that were later addressed in movies like Avengers Endgame and the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder.

“My first week, I wanted to do Jane Foster Thor and I was told no,” Bradley said. “I went into a whole feminist rant of why characters are important and why they’re necessary and why a woman needs to be able to wield the hammer and then they were like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do it in live-action.'”

Bradley said she also pitched storylines that used old-man Steve and Professor Hulk, but they were rejected as both of those takes on the characters would later appear in Avengers Endgame, something she hadn’t yet seen at the time.

Who knows what will pop up in Disney Plus and Marvel’s upcoming What If…? animated series, but we won’t have to wait long because it begins on the streaming service on August 11. Check out the latest teaser for the series while waiting for August 11 and then read about how What If…? will tell the tales that never happened in the MCU.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.