The social media age has made an absolute nightmare for anyone with any sort of active account to avoid major spoilers, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the head of the pack when it comes to mystery-shrouded projects that people can’t wait to ruin for everyone else. In a surprising turn of events, though, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron doesn’t seem to mind.
In the buildup to Sam Raimi’s bonkers blockbuster, the internet was inundated with countless rumors, speculation, hearsay, scuttlebutt, and everything in between, with a great deal of the chatter (as always) turning out to be very wide of the mark.
In an interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, the Loki creator admitted that he was just like us back in the day, so he completely understands why netizens would be out there actively looking for surprises to be ruined.
“I like the idea it can mythologize otherwise. I have so much respect for what you do, for what everybody, all the fan sites do, because that was the shit that I grew up reading. I’m such a child of Coming Attractions by Corona, Ain’t It Cool News. That stuff is probably a big reason why I’m a writer. The scoop culture, to some extent, I’m like great, that’s part of it. I think that it’s our job…we want to preserve these secrets because it just makes a better experience in the theater for the audience. You’re going to get a better pop from the audience if they don’t know what’s coming.
But I think it’s also…you can really if you spend a lot of time online, you can come to think that if something is spoiled on a corner of the internet that suddenly the whole world knows. But they don’t. It’s the people who are actively seeking that out and who want to find that stuff. And if they want to find it out, that means it’s probably going to enhance their enjoyment of the movie.
And the people who don’t wanna find out, probably aren’t. It’s like, I would be mad if it headlines news on CNN about who was in the Illuminati, but it’s not. There’s [a] spoiler warning and you know where you’re going if you go to a spoiler website. It’s like it’s what we do. It’s like the symbiotic nature of this stuff and it just builds anticipation and excitement. I think it’s cool.”
There you have it, the brains behind the secrets of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness doesn’t have an issue with multiple cats being let out of their respective bags ahead of time, even if muting mentions is now a regular part of everyday online life.
