After Scott Derrickson wound up stepping down from DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS due to creative differences earlier this year, it didn't take long for Marvel Studios to seek out a replacement, and fans got rather excited when the studio began talking with Sam Raimi (SPIDER-MAN) to take over. Derrickson gave Raimi his enthusiastic endorsement, but we haven't heard anything completely concrete regarding Raimi's involvement until now.
While chatting with journalists (including Arrow in the Head's own Lance Vlcek) via conference call about his Quibi series, 50 States of Fright, Sam Raimi confirmed that he's working on DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, and also touched about the quick name-drop of the sorcerer supreme in SPIDER-MAN 2, which came out four years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe even began.
I loved Doctor Strange as a kid, but he was always after Spider-Man and Batman for me, he was probably at number five for me of great comic book characters. He was so original, but when we had that moment in Spider-Man 2 I had no idea that we would ever be making a Doctor Strange movie, so it was really funny to me that coincidentally that line was in the movie. I gotta say I wish we had the foresight to know that I was going to be involved in the project.
Sam Raimi's involvement isn't the only change behind-the-scenes which the DOCTOR STRANGE sequel has experienced this year, as the project also welcomed Michael Waldron, showrunner of Marvel's Loki series on Disney+, onboard as the new writer, replacing previous writer Jade Barlett. As it's been said that just how scary the film was going to be was a source of disagreement between Marvel and the previous creative team, bringing new talent onboard could indicate a new direction for the project, which had been billed as Marvel's first horror movie.
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS will hit theaters on November 5, 2021. Own own Alex Maidy reviewed Quibi's 50 Stages of Fright anthology series, which debuted on the streaming service earlier this month.