Doctor Strange
Stephen Vincent Strange
Movie · Phase 4
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
2022 · 126 min
America Chavez can punch holes between universes and cannot control it, which makes her the most valuable object in the multiverse. Strange takes her under his protection and discovers the thing…
The Multiverse SagaDisney+73%Released
The story
America Chavez can punch holes between universes and cannot control it, which makes her the most valuable object in the multiverse. Strange takes her under his protection and discovers the thing hunting her is Wanda Maximoff, corrupted by the Darkhold and looking for a reality where her children exist.
Raimi turns a Marvel sequel into a horror film: possessed corpses, a Wanda who walks through the Illuminati like a slasher villain, and a finale fought with the souls of the damned. It is the closest the MCU has come to letting a director's voice override the house style, for better and worse.
Key facts
- Release date
- 6 May 2022
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 4
- Saga
- The Multiverse Saga
- Runtime
- 126 min
- Certificate
- PG-13
- Director
- Sam Raimi
- Writers
- Michael Waldron
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2025 — after Spider-Man: No Way Home and WandaVision
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Benedict Cumberbatch | Doctor Strange |
| Elizabeth Olsen | Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch |
| Xochitl Gomez | America Chavez |
| Benedict Wong | Wong |
| Chiwetel Ejiofor | Karl Mordo |
| Rachel McAdams | Christine Palmer |
Characters
Scarlet Witch
Wanda Maximoff
Professor X
Charles Francis Xavier
Captain Marvel
Carol Susan Jane Danvers
Mister Fantastic
Reed Richards
Monica Rambeau
Monica Rambeau
Easter eggs
- The Illuminati includes Patrick Stewart's Professor X, Hayley Atwell's Captain Carter, Lashana Lynch's Captain Marvel, Anson Mount's Black Bolt, Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo and John Krasinski as Reed Richards.
- Danny Elfman's score quotes the X-Men: The Animated Series theme as Professor X arrives in his yellow hoverchair.
- Bruce Campbell cameos as Pizza Poppa and is cursed to punch himself for weeks, then breaks the fourth wall in the post-credits.
- Charlize Theron debuts as Clea in the mid-credits scene, opening an incursion and recruiting Strange for the Dark Dimension.
- Rintrah, the green minotaur sorcerer from the comics, appears as a Kamar-Taj master.
- Sinister Strange and the reanimated Defender Strange are both drawn from the comics' What If and Marvel Zombies traditions.
- Wundagore Mountain and the Darkhold both come from the comics, and Wundagore is where Wanda's Scarlet Witch prophecy is inscribed.
- Wanda's 'Do you have children?' line to Christine echoes her WandaVision arc directly, and her Westview guilt is never once mentioned.
Trivia
- Scott Derrickson left over creative differences and Sam Raimi took over, returning to superhero film-making nine years after Oz the Great and Powerful and fifteen after Spider-Man 3.
- Michael Waldron wrote the screenplay immediately after showrunning Loki's first season.
- The film went through unusually extensive additional photography, widely reported as the longest reshoot schedule of any MCU film to that point.
- Danny Elfman scored it, reuniting with Raimi after their Spider-Man trilogy, and built the finale around duelling musical notes.
- Raimi imported his own grammar wholesale: Dutch angles, snap zooms, a possessed hand and Bruce Campbell.
- Xochitl Gomez's America Chavez is the MCU's first Latina LGBTQ+ hero, and her two mothers appear in a brief flashback.
- Several territories including Saudi Arabia refused the film release over America Chavez's Pride-flag pin and dialogue.
Box office
- Budget
- $200 million
- Worldwide
- $955.8 million
- Domestic
- $411.3 million
Reviews
Critics
73%
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness's freewheeling strangeness and stylistic flourishes offer a welcome change of pace, even if the story is less than magical.
The MarvelGossips verdict
Two films fighting inside one runtime: a Sam Raimi horror picture and a corporate multiverse showcase, and Raimi wins about sixty percent of it. What it does to Wanda is a betrayal of WandaVision's ending that the film never argues for, only asserts. The Illuminati massacre is the most gleefully nasty sequence Marvel has ever released.
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Frequently asked
Is Wanda dead at the end?
The film buries her under Wundagore and leaves it deliberately ambiguous, with no body shown. Elizabeth Olsen has said she does not consider the character finished, and Marvel has not confirmed a return.
Who are the Illuminati?
A council of heroes from Earth-838 who govern in secret and had already executed their own Strange. The MCU version includes Professor X, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel, Black Bolt, Mordo and Reed Richards, and Wanda kills nearly all of them.
Is John Krasinski's Reed Richards the MCU's Mister Fantastic?
No. He is an Earth-838 variant and dies in the same scene. The MCU's actual Reed Richards is played by Pedro Pascal in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
What is an incursion?
A collision between two universes that destroys one or both, caused here by unsanctioned multiversal travel. The concept comes from Jonathan Hickman's Avengers and Secret Wars comics, and is the central threat of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.