Looking back to Phase Four of MCU, among all the plethora of Marvel projects that were released, Doctor Strange 2 remains one of the most disappointing ones. Even though the film did make a fortune at the box office following the hype that surrounded the Marvel flick, the film heavily failed to live up to the set expectations, and the marketing for it can be deemed partially responsible for it.
However, things might not have turned out the way they did if things went according to director Sam Raimi’s original vision for the movie, which was almost forty minutes longer than the movie we witnessed.
The original runtime for Marvel’s Doctor Strange 2 was almost 40 minutes longer
Reflecting on some of the film’s major flaws, it seems these could’ve been avoided if the film wasn’t trimmed for the final release. Even though the direction for the movie was amazing, the writing for the film is the one to be blamed for its failure. Sam Raimi did go on to confirm the original cut for the Marvel film was about forty minutes longer than the film fans paid for, and it might have resolved some of the film’s problems that left a bad taste in fans’ mouths. Raimi stated,
“Well, the first cut was… I actually don’t remember the length of it. It was probably like two hours and 40 minutes, and it slowly came down even though we did the reshoots. We took out material even though the reshoots went in. So, it slowly got down to about two hours and five minutes is the total.”
Even though the Spider-Man 3 director didn’t reveal why the film’s runtime was trimmed down to 126 minutes, for a bunch loads of fans, the end product did leave much to be desired.
Doctor Strange 2 writers were disconnected from WandaVision
Another major concern for fans was the writing for Wanda Maximoff in the movie. Not only fans but Elizabeth Olsen herself wasn’t satisfied with how her character’s story was concluded in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange 2. And it appears the writers for Doctor Strange 2 were disconnected from what was happening with Marvel’s WandaVision, leading to a repetitive arc for Wanda’s character of dealing with loss and grief. Reflecting on the matter, Elizabeth Olsen explained,
“It’s a similar arc that I had to play in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. There could be parallel stories being told there, of dealing with grief and loss. Well, I proposed that to the writers who wrote Multiverse of Madness. I said ‘Do you know what we’re doing in WandaVision? Have you seen it?’ and no, they had not seen it, because it wasn’t finished yet.”
Although it can’t be said for sure whether the longer runtime would have worked in Marvel’s favor for Doctor Strange 2 or not, the end product definitely failed to live up to the set expectations.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is available to stream on Disney Plus.
Source: Collider
