After months of production, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now in its final week of filming, confirms Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. Feige revealed that filming was nearly over on the Doctor Strange sequel while discussing the scope and scale of ongoing small screen, Disney+ projects such as The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and Loki.

"The idea was to go back and forth -- that we weren't creating two classes of storylines or two classes of productions. And I think now that people have seen WandaVision and four out of the six [episodes] of Falcon and Winter Soldier and the trailer for Loki, they're seeing that these are A-class productions -- just as big and just as important as the movies. I'm here in London on the set of Doctor Strange 2 for our final week and Lizzie is here, having worked non-stop, from wrapping WandaVision to stepping right into Doctor Strange 2."

Principal photography on the MCU installment began in London on November 4, 2020, with Elizabeth Olsen reportedly shooting back-to-back with WandaVision. Filming was delayed from an initial May 2020 start date due to the ongoing global situation, but thankfully things eventually got back on track and are now nearing completion.

While specific plot details are largely unknown, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will evidently introduce audiences to a previously unexplored side of the MCU, the multiverse. The movie will see Benedict Cumberbatch once again reprise the role of the Sorcerer Supreme, with Chiwetel Ejiofor also set to return as friend-turned-enemy, Karl Mordo.

Scott Derrickson, who directed the first Doctor Strange, was initially slated to direct the multiverse-exploring follow-up, but after Derrickson stepped down, Sony's Spider-Man director Sam Raimi was brought in, bringing with him Spider-Man collaborator Danny Elfman to compose the movie's score.

Kevin Feige has teased a more substantial horror element in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, no doubt thanks partly to the hiring of Raimi. While clarifying that the movie will not be a straight-up horror flick, Feige did describe the project as a "big MCU film with scary sequences," comparing the movie to the likes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gremlins, and Poltergeist. Feige also revealed that the introduction of the multiverse would be "the next step in the evolution of the MCU", and said that this film would "crack it wide open" in a way that would have repercussions for the Disney+ series and the next films in Marvel Studios' Phase Four slate.

Just as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will have repercussions on the wider MCU, so will WandaVision reverberate into Doctor Strange 2. WandaVision creator and head writer Jac Schaeffer has teased further turmoil for Wanda Maximoff going into the movie saying, "From where I'm sitting, the intention was to land Wanda in this place of acceptance, but also with this enormous amount of new power, and we all know the saying 'With great power...' And so I also think her exchange with Agatha gives her so much confidence, she so fully steps into herself that the enormity of her power, in my mind, starts to make some normal human concerns about what's right and wrong drift away because she is this being that is so, so different."

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is scheduled to be released in the United States on March 25, 2022, as part of Phase Four of the MCU. This comes to us courtesy of The Undefeated.