After a disturbing development, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is finally in cinemas and making an influence on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The sequel, which arrived in cinemas a year after its scheduled release date, offered a Multiversal epic that was radically different from what Marvel Studios had in mind.
Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson quit the post for Doctor Strange 2, and Marvel finally brought in Spider-Man trilogy filmmaker Sam Raimi to fill the position. Then came the global pandemic, which pushed the film's release date and forced Marvel to adjust several of its story aspects as well as its place in the Phase 4 chronology.
One of the most significant developments occurred in the villain category, with Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch following a darker route than anybody thought by becoming Doctor Strange 2's major nemesis. Following the film's theatrical premiere, the film's chief writer commented on a character that was originally cast in the lead part - Nightmare.
The Original Role of Nightmare in Doctor Strange 2
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Head writer Michael Waldron of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness spoke with Den of Geek about the film's early inclusion of the famous Marvel Comics character Nightmare as its major antagonist.
Despite the fact that Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff was confirmed for the film during San Diego Comic-Con 2019, Waldron said that he and filmmaker Sam Raimi changed the screenplay once Waldron joined the project. The Multiverse had become more important for the future of the MCU at the time, prompting Waldron to look for a more "mutiversal foe" for Strange to battle rather than someone like Nightmare:
"There was other stuff. I believe there was once some mention about Nightmare and such such things.But it was a Multiverse story when I arrived. So it was always about figuring out who that multiversal foe was going to be."
Waldron first appeared in the film in February 2020, taking over the plot from prior director Scott Derrickson and writer Jade Bartlett.
Initially, Waldron planned to include his version into the script that Derrickson and Bartlett had previously completed. Then, with the pandemic shutting down everything, he and Raimi used the opportunity to "start again and re-examine what they wanted" to utilise in the final version of the story:
"When I first joined the team in February 2020, Sam and I inherited the tale that had been written by Scott and Jade Bartlett, the project's original writers. It had a lot of very fascinating concepts in it, and we were going to attempt to figure out our version of that plot in time to start filming in May. Then COVID happened a month later, and the film was pushed, giving us the opportunity to start again and re-examine what we intended the film to be."
Furthermore, the film was forced to undergo significant alterations when it swapped places in the MCU's release order with Spider-Man: No Way Home, implying that Doctor Strange 2 would not be Strange's first contact with the Multiverse.
"It meant Stephen would have had some actual experience with the Multiverse by now, that he had already been on a Multiversal trip. This isn't his first rodeo, to put it mildly. So that recontextualizes how you view everything. He is more aware of the threats."
With No Way Home coming out before Multiverse of Madness, Strange had a better knowledge of how to handle younger characters, especially when he worked for the first time with Xochitl Gomez's America Chavez.Chavez was supposed to make his debut with Strange in No Way Home, but he ended up working with Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, and MJ Watson instead:
"He had just returned from an expedition with children, and I believe that was the most significant factor influencing how he would interact with Americans. When it came to connecting to teenagers, she wasn't completely foreign to him."
Doctor Strange 2's Pre-Release Changes
As with the remainder of Phase 4, Doctor Strange 2 experienced a number of pandemic-related delays, requiring the tale to be revised many times before its publication.
This ultimately culminated with Nightmare being pulled from the picture altogether in favour of the alien octopus Gargantos, which was simply a cover until fans discovered Wanda's role as the film's major villain.
Nightmare is regarded as one of Marvel's most deadly demons, capable of bringing someone's astral form out of their physical body and torturing them in numerous ways. While this may have been a fearsome foe, especially because the final edit of the film already used the notion of dreamwalking, Marvel opted against it pretty early in the production owing to the availability of other Multiversal story aspects.
This was on top of needing to restructure the film due to its link with Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was supposed to be the second MCU film to utilise the Multiverse rather than the first. As a result of this shift, Ned Leeds ended up learning about his own sorcery abilities in order to introduce Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's Spider-Men into the third act, replacing the Multiverse-familiar America Chavez.
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Despite all of these changes, as well as the six-week reshoots that supposedly brought a lot of new material to the picture, fans are still flocking to see what Marvel produced.
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is presently in theatres throughout the world.