The movie business is filled with coincidences, but very rarely does one come along on the scale of two massive Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Four projects that entered development and production at roughly the same time, and will arrive in theaters just five months apart.
After Scott Derrickson dropped out of the director’s chair, Sam Raimi was drafted in to take the reins on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Jon Watts was already deep into pre-production on Spider-Man: No Way Home at the time, which featured the return of Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, with the actor delivering one of the best villainous performances the superhero genre has ever seen in Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 almost two decades previously.
The occasion hasn’t been lost on Kevin Feige, who admitted in an interview with Empire that the experience of overseeing Multiverse of Madness and No Way Home simultaneously was surreal given their obvious and unexpected connections.
“It’s absolutely surreal to be working on a Doctor Strange movie with Sam Raimi in one part of the office, and then working on a Spider-Man movie with Jon Watts and Alfred Molina as Doc Ock in another room. That has been a mind-blowing part of the last 10 years of my life.”
Not only that, but Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme plays a sizeable supporting role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which will directly inform his arc in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. No pun intended, but it’s a strange turn of events, but one that Feige seems more than happy with given the praise he’s been lavishing on both blockbusters recently.
