ok so you know me, I like Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Though it's definitely
divided the fan base I fall on the side that thinks it was a rollercoaster ride that contained
some of the best horror scenes in the MCU. Wanda was a great villain to me and watching
this chase across several universes felt like one of the funnest rides I'd had in the marvel
universe for a long time.
However things were originally gonna be different to what we got and if you cast your mind back
to the phase 4 announcement then you'll remember Scott Derrickson was initially behind the
project. He'd just come off the back of the original Doctor Strange movie and at the event
he said they were gearing up to create the first horror movie in the MCU.
However Derrickson and the studio ended up parting ways over what was said to be creative
differences. Though rumours flew around the project at the time that said Marvel were
afraid of how far he was gonna go with it this has sort of been debunked. During an
interview with Empire, Kevin Feige said that the studio still loves Scott and though no
one really believes them, it was genuinely just down to creative differences.
Feige really said 'What Scott Derrickson'
Now since then Scott has gone on to direct the phenomenal Black Phone and it makes you
wonder what his original plan was going to be.
Well we've bloody got it.
After sorting through leaks, interviews and what insiders close to the movie have said
we've pieced together elements of what the original plan for the movie was supposed to
be.
So join us as we take a trip through an alternate timeline in order to ask What If.
If you love the video 3000 then please hit the thumbs up button and make sure you subscribe
because I'll love you in every universe. With that out the way, thank you for clicking this,
now let's get into the breakdown.
Now first up there was very much three versions of this film with the first one being Derricksons
and then the plan with Raimi's both pre and mid pandemic. You might remember that Multiverse
Of Madness was slated to release before No Way Home but that Sony ended up refusing to
budge on their december release date which led to them swapping places.
America Chavez was originally going to be introduced in this film and then come No Way
Home she'd be the person that pulled across Andrew and Tobey. This was shown in a lot
of concept art for the film and it makes way more sense than having Ned discover he's a
wizard.
However Sony aka the studio behind the greatest movie of all time Morbius said nope and then
thus even Raimi's version had to have elements of it reshot to narratively build off the
back of it.
Now the original version of the film was meant to centre heavily around America Chavez being
trained by Strange and Wong.
Ontop of this we would also have them helping Wanda to harness her abilities after the events
of Wandavision.
Unlike what we got in Multiverse Of Madness, Wanda was trying to redeem herself after Westview
and she'd start off the movie by being a fallen idol who was seeking out redemption. Now eventually
she did turn into a villain much like the final film but this was over time and only
after she learned about the Multiverse through seeing what America could do. She was also
more of a puppet for the films true villains who we'll talk about in just a bit. They wanted
her to spread madness throughout the mutliverse and this would be accomplished by her being
a nexus being. This is someone who's the same in every reality and thus the bad guys could
create branches through every reality by using her.
However she would turn bad at the end and face off against the heroes due to wanting
her kids back.
Michael Waldron aka the films writer even talked about how this evolved over time in
things like the Raimi version too.
He said that originally they had Wanda turn throughout the film in early drafts but after
time they realised that it was just dead air and decided to put this in place from the
off so that they could do a Liz Truss and hit the ground.
Bit of uk political joke there for my American chums...chums with a p in it.
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Now ontop of America being introduced we would also get Clea appearing much earlier in the
movie. She would be a love interest from the off rather than Strange going back and forth
with multiple versions of Christine.
In the comics the pair got married at one point and this movie had elements that would
show the foundations of their relationship being put in place.
Now they were also going to be joined by brother Voodoo who would act as an ally. I'm unsure
whether this was changed to Rhintrah for the final draft but either way Voodoo was in early
plans for the movie.
Now as for the villains this was going to be both Shuma Gorath and also Nightmare. Building
off the back of What If, Gorath was going to be a multiversal entity that wanted to
use his enforcer Nightmare to manipulate Wanda into wrecking havoc across the multiverse.
Through using her as a vessel he wanted to spread madness throughout the entire multiverse
and then this would enable him to consume all of reality.
Now Shuma sent out Nightmare who then captured America and he took her hostage. The wizards
then started to learn about Shuma Gorath and they discovered that he'd been defeated in
the past by the wizard Cagliostro. He also appeared in episode 4 of What If and once
more we were going to watch Strange encounter him and find a way to take out the villain.
This invovled a mystical ritual that had a heavy basis in the occult and it would've
added to the horror side of it. In the final movie we of course got Strange Dreamwalking
into his corpse which stirred the spirits of the damned and I imagine that this might
have been along the same lines.
Now on the other side of this we also had Mordo from the 616 who returned after the
post credits scene in the first Strange Movie.
He was still hunting wizards and after he also learned of Goraths plans he attempted
to kill America before Nightmare could take her to Gorath. Kill America? Who is he....(insert
American poltician name that you don't like but that I won't say as I don't want to offend
anyone and make this into a political channel).
Booo too many political jokes this video Paul, unsubscribe.
Now huge shoutouts to ermstranger on twitter for putting together what was going to happen
in the final battle for the film.
This would reportedly take place in Shuma Gorath's realm which is known as the realm
of dead universes. This contains all the realities that the villain had consumed and here Nightmare
would also unleash his full powers. This had the villain bringing forth physical manifestations
of the character's worst fears and it's also at this point that Wanda would fully change.
She would realise that there's a way to get her kids back, she'd turn against the heroes
and though she'd help them to defeat Nightmare and Gorath it set a lot of things in place
for the future.
Rather than quote unquote killing her off like how they did in the final release, she
was more used as something to tease future showdowns and this would possibly even tie
into a House Of M style movie.
Though there's been stuff that's clearly based on it we've never had her truly change the
entirety of reality like how she did in that book and it would definitely be an interesting
direction to take things.
Alot of the complaints I see about Multiverse Of Madness are that her change was too sudden
but having this movie do it and then setting up things for the future would probably be
the smarter way to go about it.
Now this would massively change up the way that the movie was eventually given to us
and honestly I probably prefer the focus from the off being on Wanda being the villain.
However this seems like it handles the pieces better such as Mordo coming back around and
there was actually a scene in the original Raimi version that too had him dying after
beign killed by Wanda during the opening.
As of now he's still out in the MCU and it's gonna be interesting to see if they end up
bringing across villains like Nightmare in the future.
We of coruse got something similar to Gorath in the form of Gargantos who appeared in teh
Raimi version as one of Wanda's minions.
Having the creature as the main villain would have completely flipped things on it's head
though and I think it would've tied more into What If.
Now whether this would have been better or not is difficult to tell as these ideas don't
really paint out the full picture.
We also don't get elements like the illuminati or the cameos that we had throughout the film.
It also doens't really mention exploring the other worlds and what they would've been and
with it still being based around the multiverse you would've expected that to have been in
place.
Now obviously I'd love to hear your thoughts on this information and also whether you would've
preferred this to what we got or not.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of Doctor Strange In
The Multiverse Of Madness On The 15th Of August. All you have to do to be in with a chance
of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a
comment below with your thoughts on the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end
of the month and the winners of the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers
if that’s you.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect
scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth
checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll
see you next time. Take care, Peace