Mad WORLDS
When Avengers: Endgame put a cap on Marvel’s Infinity Saga, there was one question on everybody’s lips: what’s next?
For a while there it seemed like Marvel itself wasn’t sure. Where all roads once led, inevitably, to an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Mad Titan, by comparison Phase 4 has been positively meandering. From belated prequels (Black Widow) and origin stories (Shang-Chi), to bewildering cosmic sagas (Eternals) and tangential miniseries (Hawkeye), it hasn’t always been clear how all of this serialised storytelling tied into the bigger picture that previously made every instalment in the MCU appointment viewing.
All that is about to change with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which, as that doozy of a title suggests, is putting the multiverse at the front and centre of the MCU in a major way. “It’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal, ” says Benedict Cumberbatch of the importance of the multiverse to the MCU. Speaking to Total Film over Zoom a month into No Way Home’s record-breaking box-office run in mid-January, Cumberbatch recalls some wise-beyond-his-years foresight that film’s star, Tom Holland, offered during the shoot. “Tom was like, ‘If the ambition of this film works, it’s going to be huge.’ And I would echo that sentiment about Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.”
“Things get crazy, ” adds Sam Raimi, with a mischievous smile that’s been sorely missed in his nine-year absence from feature film directing. Coming from the man who gave Bruce Campbell a chainsaw hand, ‘crazy’ is not to be underestimated. “It really is the breaking down of the walls of the different universes. This would be the first time that we journey with the audience into other multiverses on an adventure.
