What If…? Writers Had to Change Spider-Man Episode Because It Was Too Scary For PG-13

At one point, an episode of What If…? feature Spider-Man was going to feature Peter Parker turning into something akin to a werespider. The episode would have featured the original What If…? comic arc where Parker turned into an actual spider, but the powers that be at Marvel Studios and Disney+ opted to drop the story so the show would remain in-line with the Mouse’s PG-13 guidelines for the streaming service.

“There was a couple of episodes that were just a little too dark,” What If…? writer AC Bradley recently said on an episode of The Post-Credit Podcast. “There was an original What If…? [comic] run I believe where Spider-Man turns into a real spider, and that was just too dark and too body horror for their PG-13.”

Outside of that, Bradley went on to applaud Marvel for giving her the “keys to the toy store” by allowing her and her writer’s room to do virtually anything else they wanted — so long as it wasn’t already done or in development by the studio.

“But it was a blast! You said it yourself, we were basically given the keys to the toy store,” the writer added. “‘Go have fun and make sure everything was different. Don’t give us ten of the same, give us ten of the most different stories you can come up with.’ I hope Bryan and I have achieved that.”

Earlier in the month, Bradley revealed an idea for an episode involving the Guardians of the Galaxy had to also be scrapped because the plot was too similar to that of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

“I 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],” Bradley previously told IGN.

“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,’” she joked.

Marvel’s What If…? is set for release on Disney+ beginning August 11th.

What What If… storylines do you hope to see in the series? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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