Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has pulled out all the stops when it comes to delivering a Marvel movie like no other, with cameos from every corner of Marvel’s movies and TV shows being promised by director Sam Raimi. While speaking to Rolling Stone ahead of the arrival of the movie, Raimi has addressed how approaching a movie that incorporates non-MCU characters has to be handled in a certain way, as while the audiences may know some of these characters very well, it is unlikely that the likes of Stephen Strange have encountered them before.
As the trailers and TV spots for the Doctor Strange sequel began to roll out, fans were surprised with teases for Patrick Stewart’s return as Professor X, the Illuminati, multiple versions of Strange and Wanda Maximoff and so much more. As it became apparent that the new adventure for Strange is going to take the MCU places it has never been before, that brought its own challenges for Sam Raimi on his directorial return to Marvel movies. In his Rolling Stone interview, Raimi was specifically asked about handing scenes involving legacy characters from outside the MCU, to which he said:
"I think if that situation appears, sometimes the best answer is to just let the character who's experiencing this new character react truthfully. Now, if there was a famous character from another universe that appeared in Multiverse of Madness, I'm not sure that our Doctor Strange would even know who he was; he might blow him off and not make it any big deal at all. I think a truthful response can sometimes be the funniest or the most engaging for an audience. You put them in a position like, 'Man, you don't know who that guy is? Oh, my God!' It's like if some schmo was meeting James Bond onscreen for the first time, and said, 'Buddy, you'll have the martini the way I serve it. Get me?' 'Don't you know that's James Bond?!' That's a different kind of fun for the audience to have."
Many of Doctor Strange 2’s Cameos Are Still To Be Revealed
Even though the final wave of TV spots and trailers have been seemingly generous in delivering some brief glimpses of some of the cameo appearances by the likes of Captain Carter, Professor X and a variant of Captain Marvel, there is no doubt that there are a lot more surprises set to come in the movie. From the currently unknown cameo by frequent Raimi collaborator Bruce Campbell, to the role of Scarlet Witch and the movie’s connections to WandaVision and Loki, as well as who exactly the villain of the movie is going to be, there is still more of the movie shrouded in secrecy than has been revealed.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is already expected to be Marvel Studios’ next billion dollar movie, and there are even some industry experts who expect it to challenge all other movies this year as one of the biggest releases of 2022. Following in the wake of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s exceptional cinema run, there are very few who would bet against Doctor Strange getting the summer blockbuster season off to a spellbinding start.