Marvel revealed at SDCC a lot of new projects, and to nobody’s surprise, we’re finally getting a sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange, to be released on May 7th, 2021. With the success of new franchises like Spider-Man, Black Panther and Captain Marvel, it’s easy to forget just how well the first Doctor Strange film did. Benedict Cumberbatch nailed the role and continued to do so in a smaller capacity in Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but we always knew he would eventually get another leading opportunity as Stephen Strange. Here are a few of the things that we know/want to see in the sequel when it arrives!
A True Horror Movie!
Director Scott Derrickson, returning for this film after directing Strange’s first outing, gets the chance to explore the Doctor now that he has truly become the Sorcerer Supreme, appearing very much as his Earth-Protector comic role in the three films since Doctor Strange. However, he is also getting what must feel like a unique opportunity within the MCU, to direct what he described at SDCC this past weekend as “the first MCU scary movie” which is both a shocking and intriguing development. The early style of Doctor Strange comics written by Stan Lee does lend itself towards something scarier than we’ve seen so far in the MCU and opens the door for later films like Mahershala Ali’s upcoming Blade reboot to also bring a scarier element into the universe. We want to see this style fully explored, even if they won’t quite go the full way with horror by giving the film an R-rating.
A Real Multiverse Exploration!
Without spoiling too much about Spider-Man: Far From Home, there was always something suspicious about a Spidey film being the one to explore the multiverse first, and it’ll be much more appropriate to let Doctor Strange do that deed, but we want more than just him zipping to one alternate timeline or reality in this film, we have to really see the whole thing shown off on a much larger scale. Of course, this will be easy if previous events have already influenced what we’ll be seeing…
A Real Team-Up!
While we fully expect the likes of Benedict Wong to return as Wong and Chiwetel Ejiofor to come back as Mordo in some capacity, we were all surprised by a huge crossover being announced in terms of Elizabeth Olsen AKA Wanda Maximoff being added to the cast of the Multiverse of Madness. It makes sense that we see these fellow “magic” users team-up at last, though as far as we know they’ve never actually met. The events of the Disney+ Wandavision series will apparently tie directly into this film and the existence of the multiverse, which gives an idea about how the clearly dead Vision could return for the show. Since one of the themes of the first Doctor Strange film was the mentorship between Strange and the Ancient One, it’ll be interesting to see if Strange takes on the teaching role, showing Wanda how to further her own abilities, as she is potentially taking quite the leading role in phase 4 with appearances on both platforms.
A Stronger Villain!
The first Doctor Strange film didn’t do much to deal with the widespread opinion that most MCU villains were fairly weak characters. I like to think this has changed over the course of phase three, with the likes of Zemo, Vulture, Killmonger, Mysterio and obviously Thanos bringing the level of villain up in general, but there are still problems with many of the characters that are only around for one film, their development vastly sacrificed in favour of the heroes. We’ve discovered that the primary villain for Multiverse of Madness will be Nightmare, who in Marvel Comics is the ruler of a terrifying dream dimension, which really lends itself to the kind of storytelling that we’re hopefully going to see throughout. I’m delighted, personally, that Mordo isn’t the main villain, because developing him more on the side before finally bringing his story to fruition in the third film is the kind of wonderful long-term storytelling we dream of from Marvel. Nightmare has the potential to be another huge villain for Marvel, and Derrickson loves a horror film, so he’ll carry through on the potential of this monstrous creature.
Expansion Of The MCU!
Thor: Love and Thunder will possibly be taking place mostly off-Earth and the other phase-4 films all kickstarting their own franchises. This film has a responsibility within the wider MCU to do something about the fact that we don’t know if there are any Avengers-style teams working within this universe anymore. We don’t know how the world is dealing with the blip beyond the little that we learned in Spider-Man: Far From Home. It is important, even if we only get a little, to continue expanding and interconnecting everything, otherwise, these standalone films will feel too much like just that, and connecting everything together for another massive event will be all the harder.
That’s just some of the things I think we’ve got to see in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, but what do you guys think? Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to check out more about the huge Marvel phase-4 announcements all over Viral Hare!
CHECK OUT: Marvel & Disney+: Explaining The Phase-4 TV Slate!
