Image Source: The Jakarta Post, Logopedia - Fandom

No one can deny the fact that Doctor Strange is strange. He is specifically named that way, right? But the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just not content by making him strange. They are so intent on taking all the fans into a journey of madness and the bizarre that they are actually releasing a Doctor Strange sequel. And if you are keeping up with the MCU news, you will know the sequel is named Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

The movie has been in talks for quite some time, but it made a lot of buzz when a glimpse of it was finally shown to fans at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, released in December last year in 2021. The movie is presently scheduled to be released in May and dropped its first trailer right after the credits of the latest web-slinger film. Not only does the film take after the timeline of Doctor Strange film which was released in 2017, but will also follow in with the stories of several other MCU films and even other Marvel series. 

Now that several Studios are bringing in the multiverse plotlines, the scope of the plots and stories have increased manifold. Last, fans witnessed three Spider-Men from alternate universes come together as Doctor Strange opened a portal into the other worlds. While he actually intended to do good, the spell backfired, and he drew in all the villains from the other universes and finally also two Peter Parker characters from the parallel universes. 

Though Spider-Man: No Way Home only had to deal with his universe colliding due to the misused spell, Doctor Strange will have to correct the wrong he did in more ways than one as many other universes suffer from the side-effects of the spell. Hence, the multiverse trope will require a lot of patching up, which might be seen in Benedict Cumberbatch's latest film. 

Of course, Doctor Strange can not do all of it alone and has to seek the help of another magician like him. In the trailer, Doctor Strange goes on to find Scarlet Witch, also known as Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, in the hopes that she would help him. Wanda thinks it is about the Westview tragedy and apologizes for putting the town under a despair fantasy. But Strange lets her know that bigger things are at stake and seeks her help on the multiverse.

A multiverse trope was previously teased when Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) from Disney+ was seen meeting many versions of himself. Another Disney+ show, What If...?, also touched the theme of the multiverse and featured the voices of many different actors along with Cumberbatch, who voiced Strange. Again, this too might be shown in the latest film. 

The trailer also shows how Stephen regrets opening the multiverse portal as he says that he did not want it to go in the way that it did. Doctor Strange in Multiverse of Madness also star's Stephen's enemy, Karl Mordo, who once used to be his friend. Karl Mordo's relationship with Doctor Strange turned bitter, and now he is aiming to bring all the magicians in the world to their end. 

Giving Stephen a warning, Mordo, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, says, “I’m sorry, Stephen. I hope you understand that the greatest threat to our universe — is you.” Now it is only a matter of time to see if Mordo actually chases Doctor Strange. Additionally, there is the matter of a complete another version of Doctor Strange - Dark Strange. 

The version had gone a little haywire when the neurosurgeon tried saving the life of Christine, played by Rachel McAdams, back in 2021 in What If...? The character went on to steal as much power as he could to save Christine. If the movie actually takes after the character of Dark Strange, as shown in the animated series, there will be a lot to unpack in the story later on. As Strange said himself, “Things just got out of hand.” 

The Sam Raimi film is scheduled to release on May 6, 2022, if the COVID-19 situation improves by the time, and the cinemas reopen. The director already has experience helming Multiverse films as he was the mastermind behind Spider-Man: No Way Home, the highest film grosser last year. 

The film suffered quite a lot of lag in its shoot times as the pandemic kept on remerging with new and new variants. The film hence had to do with a delayed production and many other technical shortcomings. However, the process of the shoot picked right when things got better, and it is well into releasing in early summer this year. 

Talking of the various obstacles that the film faced during its shoot period, Cumberbatch shared, "We’re in the middle of reshoots, and we’re working incredibly hard to make a schedule work to realize the full potential of the film - bits that we want to do better but also bits that were just impossible to do on the day because of logistics, COVID, etc. We were so delayed in production because of that. Luckily, not during production too much. Although everything is just a little slower."

Cumberbatch is quite excited to have a full-fledged film due to Doctor Strange, but knowing that the neurosurgeon is actually strange, the actor said that a full film for the Supreme Sorcerer could be a 'problem.' He shared, "This is the second one of him on his own," referring to Doctor Strange's standalone movie and added, "Well, yeah that’s part of the problem."

Doctor Strange 2 features two different versions of the sorcerer; Credits: Doms2Cents

The actor continued, "There’s a lot of stuff going on in it. It’s like, “do I have a character arc in this? Is it working?” There’s great stuff for me to do in it. It’s very busy. It’s called The Multiverse of Madness, and it’s bonkers."