Benedict Cumberbatch rewrote ‘Doctor Strange 2’ scenes to make it less Disney and more Derrickson

Having established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the horror genre, fans were disappointed when Scott Derrickson ended up dropping out of the director’s chair on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. However, as far as replacements with spooky experience go, you couldn’t hope to do much better than Sam Raimi.

Ironically, the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster was at its best when the filmmaker was allowed to cut loose and indulge his signature stylistic tendencies, but felt a little flat when it was forced into doing the necessary expositional world-building that comes with the comic book territory.

However, leading man Benedict Cumberbatch revealed in an interview with Prestige Online that he ended up rewriting several pivotal scenes himself, in order to avoid the sentimental Disney nature that was beginning to seep in, instead favoring something more in line with what he was pitched by Derrickson.

“That was the most fun bit, and I couldn’t talk about any of that pre-press, so it’s very nice to be able to speak about it now. I absolutely loved it, and it sounds so egotistical – but there we go, that’s what actors are – but I loved doing the scenes with myself because of the challenge of it. And I got to write some of those scenes … I suggested that it needed to get darker at a point. There was a slightly more saccharine version at one stage and I’m really happy with the way it evolved.

Sam Raimi was so game for it and Michael Waldron really supported me to write it as well. We turned what was a very small combat between the two into a sort of very bizarre and inventive battle in that moment. I really loved it. It was how the original was pitched to me a long while back when Scott Derrickson was still working with us: Strange would meet versions of himself. It was something I wanted to lean into. We could have gone even further, and maybe it will go into the future. Who knows what other versions we might need in the multiverse chapter of the MCU? But it was very enjoyable to play all the variants of myself.”

Cumberbatch sticking to his guns and paying tribute to Doctor Strange 2‘s director is a nice touch, especially when Raimi and Michael Waldron were there every step of the way and trying to put their own ideas across, too. Multiverse of Madness‘ best moments came when it embraced the darkness, and it sounds as though Derrickson may have played a bigger part in that than we realized.