Sam Raimi walks you through all the Doctors Strange in this exclusive Multiverse Of Madness Blu-ray clip
Including the reveal of how Raimi and writer Michael Waldron got Kevin Feige to say yes to the wildest Strange of all
[Note: This post contains spoilers for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.]
One of the appeals of that increasingly popular storytelling whatsit, the multiverse, is that it serves up a major treat to both actor and fan alike: Getting to see multiple takes on a single fan-favorite character, often interacting with each other. (And often, by “interacting,” we mean “punching each other in the face”). Certainly, that’s a big part of the appeal of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays a wide number of variants of Stephen Strange who all, despite their diverse lives and skillsets, all still kind of talk like that.
Today, we’ve got an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip of the film from its upcoming Blu-ray release, in which Cumberbatch, screenwriter Michael Waldron, and director Sam Raimi talk about crafting the various Doctors Strange who appear in the film, from the “Defender Strange” who shows up in its opening moments (and who was apparently a more “Patrick Swayze” version of the character), to the increasingly dark and brutal versions of the Good-ish Doctor who appear throughout the film.
“It’s a very odd day at the office,” Cumberbatch notes when talking about some of the darker elements of the character, especially the version who ends up getting that creepy extra eye in the middle of his forehead. The most hilarious moment of the video, though, is when Waldron reveals that he sold Marvel honcho Kevin Feige on the idea of a living corpse of Doctor Strange serving as our “hero” for the movie’s final section through a tried-and-true manager management technique: Pitching a much dumber idea (tragically unrevealed) for a different version of the character, so that Feige would pick the relatively less wild Dead Strange instead. (Also, it is hard to discount how cute Sam Raimi sounds while describing what a cool badass is Doctor Strange is as he weaves “his cloak of souls.”)
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will be released on Digital on June 22 and on 4K Blu-ray and DVD on July 26.