Marvel Studios Developing More Animated Shows to Follow What If...?

Marvel Studios reached a milestone on Wednesday morning with the debut of Marvel's What If...? The new series is the first ever animated project to come from Marvel Studios, which has spent the last decade-plus putting together the largest movie franchise on the planet. What If...? is certainly a change of pace for the studio, but it's clearly one that the producers are comfortable with, as more animation awaits Marvel in the future.

While speaking with Variety about the series premiere of What If...?, series producer Brad Winderbaum explained that Marvel already has "multiple" different animated projects in "various phases of development" for the Disney+ streaming service.

"We realized that there's a lot of cool avenues you can explore with animation," Winderbaum said. "Any project that we create is going to be something that needs to be animated in order for the story to be told. There's very little desire to take a piece of IP that's popular because we're coming out with a movie and just make an animated show about it. We're not going to do that."

There would've been no way for What If...? to work in a live-action format, considering all of the actors in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are older than they were when they filmed their original on-screen parts. It would cost a fortune to completely remake Captain America: The First Avenger with Peggy Carter at the center. However, the art of animation allows for limitless possibilities, which is basically the point of What If...? anyway.

Animation for Marvel Studios is especially exciting when the creative team can get the actors from the movies to voice their characters. Most of the characters in What If...? are voiced by the talent that played them in live-action, with just a few exceptions.

"This isn't a giant budgeted series," said Winderbaum. "We figured, we'll go out to talent, and we'll see who we can get. If we get a few, it's great. And I was, of course, worried that we wouldn't get anyone."

There are a ton of projects currently in the pipeline for Marvel Studios, with major movies set for theatrical release and several different TV shows in development or production for Disney+. Now that you can add more animated projects to the list, there won't be any shortage of Marvel stories on-screen any time soon.

Are you excited to see more animated projects from Marvel Studios? Let us know in the comments!