A lot has changed in the MCU since Benedict Cumberbatch made his first appearance as Doctor Strange in 2016. It has taken six years for the sorcerer’s second solo movie to arrive thanks to Covid delays, but the wait is about to pay off big time with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness predicted to open with up to a $200 million opening weekend. Coming off the back of Spider-Man: No Way Home, it was always expected that Marvel Studios would have another massive hit on their hands. Now it looks like the movie will open with well over double the weekend box office of the first Doctor Strange movie.
When projections were released for Spider-Man: No Way Home, most expected the film to hit around $150 million in its first weekend, and that turned out to be a vast underestimation of how big the film would become. While Doctor Strange 2 has a higher prediction than Tom Holland’s third solo outing as Spider-Man, there is no way of telling whether this will also turn out to be underestimating the pull of Marvel movies right now. The opening of the multiverse has seen a whirlwind of rumors and possibilities blasting around the internet as fans try to work out exactly what is coming from the new addition to the MCU’s ever-expanding catalog.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set to take the hints of the multiverse and variants that were introduced in the Disney+ series Loki and expanded on in Spider-Man: No Way Home. So far, the movie has been marketed to feature several variations of Strange, Wong, Christine Palmer and Wanda Maximoff, with others such as X-Men’s Professor X, played by Patrick Stewart, Tom Cruise playing Superior Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Deadpool, and many others being rumored to appear in what is turning into one of the most important movies of the MCU’s Phase Four.
Multiverse of Madness Will Draw on WandaVision’s Storyline
Marvel’s latest big-screen offering will be the first MCU movie to rely on audiences having stepped into their Disney+ catalog, with the film picking up Wanda Maximoff’s story following the events of WandaVision. In the first Disney+ series, Wanda was found to have taken the loss of Vision in Avengers: Infinity War pretty badly, realizing her grief by taking an entire town hostage inside a bubble-world she created to be able to live out her life with Vision and their two children in her own happily ever after. As that world fell apart, Wanda was transformed into Scarlet Witch, but at the same time lost her “family” as she returned to the real world.
The trailers for Multiverse of Madness have seen Wanda appearing as both an ally to Strange and Wong and an enemy, with some pretty big rumors out there suggesting that the events that transpire in the movie will see ramifications across the whole MCU. While Spider-Man: No Way Home saw its multiverse doors being closed off by the end of the film, it is hard to see Doctor Strange’s adventure having a happy ending for everyone.