Last week, Dave Bautista responded to a fan’s question about why he’s not voicing Drax on Marvel’s What If…?, and the always blunt and open actor didn’t pull any punches. “Let’s start with I was never asked,” Bautista quote tweeted for his 1.4 million followers to see. Not that it needed the help, but the tweet gained even more traction when Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn jumped into the replies to voice his disbelief with a simple “What.”
Gunn’s surprise made sense because Bautista not being asked to join the voice cast didn’t track, and if true, would seem oddly personal. By all accounts, What If…? went out of its way to have every MCU actor reprise their role if possible. (Some had scheduling conflicts, while others like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans were sticking to their Marvel Studios exit.) And according to a new interview with What If…? executive producer Brad Winderbaum, there was an attempt to get Bautista on board. Via Variety:
“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.”
Of course, Bautista has been making waves about leaving Marvel after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, so that does add a bit of drama to his What If…? exclusion. However, the show had already started locking down the cast at least two years ago before Bautista started voicing his intentions to leave. At least publicly. The actor isn’t afraid to be candid on Twitter or in interviews, so it’ll be interesting to hear his thoughts on the whole thing being a “miscommunication.”
(Via Variety)