Less than four weeks remain until Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters, which means Marvel is in the final phase of its massive marketing push. We’ve yet to see another full Doctor Strange 2 trailer, although Marvel released a couple of TV spots that include additional plot teasers.
We reminded you at the time that not everything you see in Marvel’s trailers is accurate. The studio has been misleading fans for years with the help of its trailers, and Multiverse of Madness is the kind of big MCU project that deserves such sleight of hand from Kevin Feige and company.
Further proving that point is a brand new featurette that comes with quotes from the film’s main cast members. Sam Raimi also talks about making Doctor Strange 2, dropping a big teaser for the film’s plot. The director said that fans are about to get what they want, but it’s not exactly what they expect. Before we get into it, we’ll remind you that some big spoilers might follow below.
Seen below, Marvel’s Enter the Multiverse featurette includes plenty of footage from the movie. Many of the scenes you’re about to see will seem familiar because Marvel included them in previous Doctor Strange 2 trailers. They’re not enough to spoil the film’s entire plot, however. They’re only teasers meant to raise our expectations.
The scenes in the featurette are closely linked to the ones we saw in the trailers. Some of them provide additional information that will make sense to Multiverse of Madness fans who are also aware of the big plot leak from last fall.
Sam Raimi offers some teasers
For example, we see a variant of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) navigating a mirror dimension while a monster is chasing them. Thanks to those plot leaks, we know it’s Defender Strange in those scenes, which probably occur early in the movie. And that Strange version’s fate is already sealed.
“Telling this story was such a gigantic endeavor,” Sam Raimi says in the featurette. “It had to be not only paint a picture of our universe, but of multiple universes.”
“It was a great opportunity to pair two of the most powerful superheroes together,” the director continued. This is a clear reference to Doctor Strange and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen). And it’s a this point we’ll remind you a recent Doctor Strange 2 TV spot offered misleading plot teasers by suggesting a sort of Avengers-like team-up that would include the two characters.
“We wanted the fans to go, ‘Oh, how cool!” Raimi went on. At this point, he implied that Doctor Strange 2 will have a big plot twist that fans will not necessarily see coming. “I mean that really was our goal. We wanted to give the fans what they wanted, just not exactly what they expected.”
What is the plot of Doctor Strange 2?
If you haven’t read the big Doctor Strange 2 plot leak, then you might think that whatever causes the multiverse problems will need many Avengers with a particular set of skills to solve them. The list includes the new Sorcerer Supreme, who happens to be Wong (Benedict Wong), Doctor Strange, and Wanda. You might even think that evil variants of the characters we love might be blamed for the multiverse threat.
But the Super Bowl trailer delivers a surprising plot detail that indicates something more nefarious is afoot. Wanda is fighting against a familiar character. We think it’s a Captain Marvel variant, and the most recent TV spots make that clear. The current featurette also includes another scene from that battle, showing the massive clash between the two forces. It also suggests that Wanda might be more than ready to face Captain Marvel and all her might.
Variants or not, Wanda and Captain Marvel fighting means one of them has to be part of the villain team. That’s not entirely a big surprise, as we saw the same kind of Avenger vs. Avenger face-off in Civil War.
Misleading plot teasers aside, it seems more likely for Wanda to be the Doctor Strange 2 villain than Captain Marvel and her team of heroes from different dimensions. Wanda has done a few questionable things in the past, most recently in the aftermath of Endgame. She kidnapped an entire town while dealing with her grief over losing Vision. Even so, Doctor Strange is willing to bring her back to the Avengers, that misleading TV clip says.
The big plot leak
The reality is different. Wanda will be the villain, and that’s probably the kind of expectations subversion that Sam Raimi teases in the featurette. The Darkhold’s magic might be manipulating this beloved superhero, but Wanda will be the antagonist in Doctor Strange 2. That’s a plot detail that none of the teasers fully convey. But you should be aware of the possibility, especially if you are a big Wanda stan.
Bring the big Multiverse of Madness plot leak into view, and you know for certain that Wanda is going to be the film’s main antagonist for the most part. And she might very well redeem herself by the end of Doctor Strange 2, the same plot leak teases. But not before leaving a trail of suffering behind.
We certainly expect more Multiverse of Madness content in the coming weeks from Marvel. It’ll be interesting to see whether the studio is willing to reveal any other cameos or tease additional plot details.
Doctor Strange 2 opens on May 6th, and tickets are already selling out online for some showtimes.
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