Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw the return of Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch following her sabbatical in Westview during WandaVision. Though despite the projects being so intertwined, it seems as though the writers of the sequel didn’t have the chance to watch the show it was following up!
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is divisive among fans, though often times for reasons they wouldn’t agree on. Some wanted more of director Sam Raimi’s style while others wanted less. Some more cameos, some less. Though perhaps the most controversial element of the film is turning Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch into a full-blown villain.
While it was certainly a fate teased at the end of WandaVision, the Wanda Maximoff fans know wouldn’t be a fan of the wanton murders that took place in the film. According to Elizabeth Olsen, this rapid turn likely came in the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron not having watched WandaVision:
“It’s a similar arc in ‘Multiverse of Madness’ that it is in ‘WandaVision,'” Olsen tells Vanity Fair. “There could be parallel stories being told there of dealing with grief and loss. Well, I proposed that to the writers who wrote ‘Multiverse of Madness’. I said, ‘Do you know what we’re doing in ‘WandaVision’? Have you seen it?’ And no, they had not seen it because it wasn’t finished yet. So I had to try and, I don’t know, play it differently, right? I had to attack the same themes in order for it to be interesting for me, and potentially for the audience. I just had to come at it from a different point of view so that it wasn’t repetitive.”
The writer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness having not watched WandaVision has been an open secret amongst fans for a while now. Even if WandaVision had finished by the time production started in earnest for the project, the troubled production of the film likely meant Michael Waldron didn’t have time to watch the show. While many fans still enjoyed Elizabeth Olsen’s role in the sequel as the Scarlet Witch, and it’s not likely to be her last, the entire situation serves as a lesson to Marvel on the dangers of packing connected projects so closely together.
The cast and storyline of the Doctor Strange sequel
Directed by Sam Raimi from a script written by Michael Waldron, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams.
The official synopsis for the Doctor Strange sequel reads as follows: “The MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now available to own on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD. It’s also streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.
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