‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Brings Back Rachel McAdams
Doctor Strange is bringing more people in, with Rachel McAdams being the latest to join In the Multiverse of Madness, after many months of speculation about the actress not coming back.
After months of speculation, Deadline is finally reporting that the actress will reprise her role as Dr. Christine Palmer in the upcoming sequel to 2016’s Marvel hit. The new movie will be directed by Sam Raimi, who is taking over after Scott Derrickson, who directed the first installment and departed the project back in January. Production is set to begin in May, despite recent reports that it would begin in November 2020.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is looking to be the third installment in an overall arc that will begin with WandaVision, which will hit Disney Plus on January 15, 2021. Even though for now there is just fan speculation that the Sorcerer Supreme will appear in that show, we do know for sure that he is popping up in the next project of said arc, the currently untitled Spider-Man 3, which will hit theaters on December 17, 2021. That movie is adding new returning characters from Marvel movies of the past 20 years every day, or at least that’s what it feels like, after this week’s confirmation that Alfred Molina is coming back as Doctor Octopus, and reports saying that Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and Andrew Garfield are back as well. Rumor has it Charlie Cox’s Daredevil will be back too.
But Spider-Man 3 will not be the only project of this Multiverse Arc to have recurring characters back, as Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff is going to appear in Doctor Strange 2. Benedict Wong and Chiwetel Ejiofor are back as well, with the latter playing the now-turned-antagonist Mordo.
Despite that set up in the post-credits scene back in 2016, I don’t think Mordo will be the main villain of the sequel. Maybe he will be a secondary villain like Crossbones in Captain America: Civil War, or maybe he will continue his arc towards pure evil and eventually become the full-on antagonist of a hypothetical third film (or some other MCU project even).
With the movie now deep into pre-production and the script having been locked for a while, I have to question McAdam’s late inclusion. That is telling me that she will probably have a small role and might not pop up in more than two or three scenes. If Multiverse of Madness is going to close whatever mess Wanda sets off in WandaVision, it looks like the plot will be pretty packed already, so maybe they just didn’t have a lot of time to continue developing Strange’s personal relationship.
If that is the case, I’m torn. On the one hand, I’m happy they are focusing on story rather than characters or actresses, but on the other hand, I really like Rachel McAdams and the dynamic she and Benedict Cumberbatch had in the first installment, so I’ll probably miss that. However, I have to say that after Infinity War and Endgame, it looks like they are promoting Doctor Strange and that he will have a protector-of-the-Multiverse kind of role, so perhaps he doesn’t have a lot of time for love interests. It’s all looking very interesting regardless.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is hitting theaters on March 25, 2022.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
