Sam Raimi might be a lifelong comic book fan, one who went on to direct a trilogy of Spider-Man blockbusters before being invited back into the fold to helm Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness after the departure of Scott Derrickson, but that doesn’t mean he’s well-versed in the lore of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In fact, the filmmaker admitted that he’d only seen four or five of the franchise’s 27 installments prior to taking the reins on Benedict Cumberbatch’s solo sequel, which necessitated a crash course in the mythology. After all, Multiverse of Madness is directly tied to both WandaVision and Spider-Man: No Way Home, while it also continues Phase Four’s recurring theme of dealing with the fallout from the Infinity Saga.
In an interview with AMC Theaters ahead of the film’s release in just a couple of weeks, Raimi revealed that he’d been brushing up on the MCU’s history in order to get into the right mindset for framing Doctor Strange 2.
“A great job for all to have is to describe the impossible because it really, it puts demands on you as an artist. What could it be like, something I’ve never seen before, heard before, touched before? How can I describe it to the medium of film? At the same time, I had to become aware of the Avengers lore and where the whole Marvel universe was, where Wong’s character was and what the state of the universe was after Thanos.”
That’s an awful lot to wrap your head around, and that’s without even considering the raft of cameos from countless different realities we’re all expecting to drop by. Based on the footage we’ve seen so far, though, there’s plenty of confidence that Raimi has knocked Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness out of the park.