What If...? Showrunner Breaks Silence on Dave Bautista Casting Issues

When Marvel's What If...? was first announced it came with it two big promises: the first animated series effort from Marvel Studios and also much of the cast that played the character in live-action would be reprising their voices for the show. Stars like Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, and even Chadwick Boseman (prior to his death) lent their voices to the Disney+ series. Not everyone from the MCU returned though and Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista recently made headlines when he revealed that he wasn't asked to voice Drax in the upcoming series, which apparently was a surprise to the show's executive producer.

"I saw that, too," executive producer Brad Winderbaum told Variety when asked about it. "It's my understanding that everybody was asked in some way, shape or form, either through their agents or directly. I don't know really what happened behind the scenes there, but certainly, we would have loved for him to be in the show. So there's probably some miscommunication somewhere." Perhaps the second season can right this wrong as we alreayd know that another batch of episodes are in the works.

Winderbaum further opened up about other actors that didn't appear, major players like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Holland, Zoe Saldana and Elizabeth Olsen are notably not voicing their characters, adding: "Part of it, I think, was literally the schedule — maybe. I mean, I don't know," Winderbaum said, reportedly with a shrug. "We didn't push that hard."

Bautista has already made it clear that once his time as Drax comes to a close with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (and seemingly The Holiday Special that will arrive just beforehand) he will close the curtain on acting in Marvel movies.

"It will (be his last appearance)," Bautista previously said on The Ellen Show "It's weird because when I said it, I said it recently because I've been doing interviews and talking a lot about guardians and I didn't think it was going to be news because I figured everybody assumed that this is how it works. We work in trilogies and James Gunn has already announced that it's his last film, and when James is done I'm done, and I'm also going to be 54 years old by the time Guardians 3 comes out and just like the shirtless thing is getting harder and harder for me. The journey has come full circle and I'm ready to just kind of step aside and wrap it up."