From a deleted murderous opening scene and an alternate ending, to an extended showdown between
Scarlet Witch and Professor X, Multiverse of Madness was almost an incredibly different movie!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and these are the deleted scenes and alternate ending you
never got to see in Doctor Strange 2! Spoilers, of course, so take care.
Marvel's Multiverse of Madness had a pretty chaotic production,
from original director Scott Derrickson quitting over creative differences, to pandemic-related
problems, and new director Sam Raimi having to begin shooting before the script was finalised.
In fact, they didn't even have an ending to the story until halfway through filming
and when the movie's release date was flipped to come after Spider-Man: No Way Home and
WandaVision instead of before, as had been the plan, numerous other changes had to be made.
Of course, these kinds of situations are part and parcel of moviemaking and can
lead to fantastically enjoyable movies as well as critically derided ones.
But what's the case for Doctor Strange? Well, according to Raimi, his first cut of
the movie was around two hours and 40 minutes, over 30 minutes longer than the final version.
And we can figure out some of what was cut from the end movie via missing scenes
from the trailers and early plot leaks. Some of these leaks were fairly accurate
when compared to the final film, so what's missing would be an indicator of changes
made due to reshoots as well as cuts made after feedback from test screenings.
One big change made was to the opening of the movie which, in the leaked plot,
had Mordo hunting Wanda in "a fiery burned forest" with "a magical bow".
It seems he tracked her down to a cabin where she was living, perhaps the one
we see her in at the end of WandaVision. Mordo tried to kill her with magic arrows
but failed, and instead she ended up killing him, chopping off his head.
This horror-filled scene set around a cabin in the woods certainly feels fitting for a Sam
Raimi film, given his iconic Evil Dead movies. And it would have followed up on Mordo's story
from the end of the first Doctor Strange movie where he turned against Stephen and later tracked
down Pangborn and took away his powers. Why are you doing this?
Because I see, at long last, what's wrong with the world.
Too many sorcerers. The cut scene of Mordo hunting Wanda would have,
in a way, paid off this cliffhanger from the first movie, but it seems Marvel decided instead
that they want to keep that Mordo alive so he can return in a future Doctor Strange film and get a
proper conclusion to his evil Mordo story set up at the end of the original film.
Another possibility is that the deleted scene might have felt too similar to the
opening scene of the first Doctor Strange movie where the villain Kaecilius and his Zealots
decapitated a librarian at the Kamar-Taj. Plus, not revealing Wanda as a villain right
away in the opening scene keeps alive a bit of the mystery of who's behind
the inter-dimensional monster attacks on America Chavez a little longer.
Another big change to the movie was made during reshoots when, according to The
Hollywood Reporter, inspired by Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel "decided to have more fun with the
multiverse" by adding more cameos and characters. And it looks like this changed the Illuminati
line-up in comparison to what was planned in the original script.
However, there wasn't any Mister Fantastic or Black Bolt, so it seems these were later
additions and that they replaced Balder the Brave, who was also originally
going to be a member of the Illuminati. In the comics, Balder is an Asgardian and
Thor's half-brother, and there were rumours he was going to be played by Raimi regular,
Bruce Campbell, who also cameoed in all three of Raimi's Spider-Man movies.
However, Campbell ended up with the part of Pizza Poppa, the street food vendor who complains about
not getting paid and who Strange casts a spell on to keep hitting himself, in a nod to Campbell's
famous Evil Dead character. Groovy.
It might have been interesting to see Strange meet Thor's half-brother,
especially after the sorcerer's previous interaction with Thor and Loki in Ragnarok.
Wanda's massacre of the Illuminati, including how she took out Charles Xavier,
was a huge moment in the movie. However, in the original plot,
Wanda had an extended confrontation with Professor X where he floated up to her in his Hover Chair
as we can see in this pre-vis concept art. His levitating chair would have been a reference
to Professor X's Hover Chair from the 90s X-Men animated TV show, and would have fit nicely with
the theme tune from that series which plays when Charles first arrives in the film.
The ending of Multiverse of Madness also had numerous significant
changes compared to the original plot. The brutal battle at Kamar Taj, where Scarlet
Witch wiped out almost everyone, came towards the end rather than at the beginning of the movie,
and there was also going to be a scene of Rintrah giving a speech in praise of Wong.
More significant, though, is that originally after Wanda decided to destroy the Darkhold castle and
bury herself under rock, we would have then got a shot where we actually see her in the rubble.
In the final movie, the scene ends instead on a wide shot of the collapsing castle and mountain,
and you can see a little burst of red energy in the crumbling rock.
I think this could be read two ways, as either Wanda making a protective bubble
for herself so she can survive or as a final burst of her magic as she dies.
I think it's pretty much guaranteed Elizabeth Olsen will be back, but seeing her in the
rubble at the end might have implied more strongly that she's still alive,
similar perhaps to the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine where we see Deadpool, also the
villain of that story, as his arm crawls out from under a pile of rubble and his eyes open.
Of course, if this Wanda is dead, we could still see Olsen return as
a Wanda variant from a different universe. Would you like to see Scarlet Witch back?
Comment with your thoughts and theories below. A cool surprise in the mid-credits scene is when
Charlize Theron makes her MCU debut as Clea to request help from Doctor
Strange about an incursion in another dimension. There had been some reports and fan speculation
that Rachel McAdams, who plays Christine Palmer, was going to end up cast as Clea as well.
In fact, since the film's release, McAdams has revealed that she was initially told she'd be
playing three versions of her character. However, in the final movie, she played just
two versions of Christine, one in the regular main universe, and one in the 838 universe,
who was a scientist working for the Illuminati. There are some interesting moments in the trailers
and promo materials of footage that didn't make it into the final film.
There seems to be an extended or alternate version of Stephen meeting Sinister Strange as we never
got this dialogue in the final movie. Things just got out of hand.
Now, this could be from a scene that was later reshot or perhaps from a longer version where
Sinister Strange was explaining how his use of Darkhold magic had gone wrong.
Or it might even have been a reference to the actions of Strange Supreme from
the animated "What If?" series who became corrupted and destroyed his own universe.
In fact, the line might have actually been removed to avoid confusing fans as some
already thought that Sinister Strange was the same character as the animated Strange Supreme until,
that is, Benedict Cumberbatch recently debunked the theory.
And if you're enjoying these scenes so far, do hit that like button and subscribe so
you don't miss out on new videos like this. There's a short scene teased in the trailers of
Wong and Strange seemingly discussing the consequences perhaps of Doctor Strange's
actions in Spider-Man: No Way Home. I did what I had to do to protect our world.
You can't control everything Strange. From the backdrop, it looks like this
probably took place in the Sanctum Sanctorum and it feels like it was likely cut due to being a bit
of exposition that the audience didn't need. Interestingly, Raimi has said that a lot of
what they learn from test screenings is not just what audiences don't
understand about a movie or what they like, but also what the audience already knows and
doesn't need or want explaining again, or things they can figure out themselves without further
explanation which helps keep the story tighter. And there was a creepy shot teased in
the trailer of a close-up of a crow. We don't have much context of where this
came in the original cut but given the reddish backdrop it's probably from a Wanda-focused scene,
perhaps the deleted opening scene where Mordo is tracking her down
or when Strange visits Wanda for the first time and she reveals the desolate red orchard.
Now, we know Deadpool will be coming to the MCU at some point and fans are waiting
on a confirmed date for when the Merc with a Mouth will get his next movie.
However, there were a stack of rumours that he was going to appear in a Multiverse of
Madness post-credits scene, and some fans even believed they could see Deadpool in
a shard of glass on a poster for the film. One purported leak correctly predicted Clea's
appearance in the mid-credits, though some of the details around it weren't quite so accurate,
but it also stated that Deadpool, Cable, Domino, and Vanessa were in a post-credits scene where
they turned up at the Illuminati centre to discover the carnage unleashed by Wanda.
Supposedly, Deadpool would have cracked a few jokes about the dead members and Krasinski's
best-known role in the TV series The Office, and then broken the Fourth Wall with a comment about
how Patrick Stewart's Professor X was dead yet again, referencing the numerous times Charles
has previously died in Fox's X-Men movies. Whether this post-credits scene was really
on the cards or more like a wild rumour, I'll leave up to you.
So, Movie Lovers, do you wish any of these deleted scenes had been in the final movie?
Let me know below. Next tap left for more
awesome Marvel deleted scenes and alternate endings, like how Black Widow almost came back
from the dead at the end of her solo movie. Thanks for enjoying this movie with me and hope
you have a marvellous movie-loving week! Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!