What If…? creator A.C. Bradley recently shared how a comment from Jon Favreau during the production of Season 1 led to the creation of the Season 2 episode, “What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”
According to /Film, at a press conference for What If…? Season 2, Bradley revealed the “deal” Favreau had proposed during voice recording for Season 1 that ultimately led to the Christmas-themed episode starring his character, Happy Hogan, and Thor’s Darcy Lewis.
“The second season, we knew we wanted to do a Darcy episode and sort of had that in our back pocket. And then Jon Favreau, I’m allowed to tell this story. First of all, he’s amazing. He’s one of the absolute nicest human beings and most talented human beings … and so when he came in to do Season 1, he kind of jokingly made a deal,” Bradley recalled. “He’s like, ‘I’ll do Season 1, but Season 2, I get to headline. And I want to be The Freak.'”
Happy Hogan vs. Justin Hammer
Bradley added that she and What If…? writer and producer Matthew Chauncey had never heard of The Freak — a mutated version of Happy Hogan introduced in the 1960s — when Favreau first brought him up: “We’re like, ‘Oh no, what are we [agreeing] to?’ And then as we were talking about the episode, we’re like, ‘Let’s make it an ode to Mr. Favreau.'”
She continued, “And we started looking at his amazing movies. And we even had a little mention of The Chef Show in there . . . and we were looking at Elf, and were like, ‘No, we can’t do Elf. Let’s do Die Hard.'”
The upcoming What If…? episode will also feature the return of Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell, for the first time since the Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King. Hammer also appeared as the secondary antagonist of 2010’s Iron Man 2.
“When Justin Hammer lays siege to Avengers Tower during the annual holiday party, there’s only one person left on site to stop him — Happy Hogan,” reads the episode synopsis. “But in setting out to prove his hero chops, Iron Man’s errand boy may end up transforming himself in more ways than one.”
What If…? Season 2, Episode 3, “What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”, will premiere on Disney+ on December 24, 2023.
