What If…? Creators Talk Possibility of Jeffrey Wright Playing The Watcher in Live-Action

There’s no arguing that this week belongs to Jeffrey Wright. Not only did the actor return to the Bond franchise as Felix Leiter for the first time since Quantum of Solace was released in 2009, but he also starred in the epic season finale of Marvel’s What If…? animated series as The Watcher. Marvel fans are eager to see Wright return as the character in the upcoming second season, but what about in a live-action capacity? Recently, What If…? head writer A.C. Bradley and director Bryan Andrews spoke with Variety about the series and addressed the possibility of Wright playing his role in live-action.

“Jeffrey Wright can play any role he wants, as far as I’m concerned. If he wants to play Sue Storm, sign him up,” Bradley joked. Andrews added, “We love him. It’s up to Kevin [Feige]. At some point, maybe? Who knows what they have in store. There’s some things that we may know, but there’s a lot that even we don’t know, because they keep it buttoned up. But I’m with the audience. I think it would be amazing to see. I would love to see some random shots where there’s Jeffrey Wright, watching from a distance.”

“Not in costume,” Bradley clarified. “In jeans and a sweater, drinking a cup of coffee. He walks in from crafty over to the shot.” Andrews replied with a laugh, “Look at this stuff going on right over here!” 

While there’s no word on whether Wright will be seen in any Marvel projects other than What If…?, Bradley did recently tease what’s next for The Watcher while speaking with ComicBook.com. 

“The Watcher was designed to almost be us,” Bradley explained. “He’s us, the audience. He’s us, the watchers, as we’ve been watching the MCU grow and expand these last almost-14 years now. And then even for some of these older folks who grew up reading the comic books, reading these universes. So the whole idea of The Watcher was that as these stories continue, he steps more and more closer, he becomes more real to us, because these stories become so much more to him. They become his language, his cultural touchstones, the way it has for our entire society. And these heroes become, in a way, his friends. He needs to save the multiverse because he can’t let this go. He breaks his oath because they matter so much. Something finally matters so much to him that he’s forced to break his oath.”

“And that was pulling from the comic books,” Bradley continued. “In the comic books The Watcher is notorious for saying he won’t intervene, and then when he does, it’s always for something huge. He doesn’t intervene because Reed Richards’ car broke down. He intervenes because something huge is coming on the horizon. We just had to figure out what that would be in the Marvel multiverse, and that was the idea of playing with Ultron, who is such a great villain. And now, thanks to Phase Four, he could have the Infinity Gauntlet. You marry Ultron with the Infinity Gauntlet and you have utter devastation.”

Would you like to see Wright play The Watcher in live-action? Tell us in the comments! 

Season 1 of What If…? is now available to stream in its entirety on Disney+.