On May 6th, the sequel to 2016's Doctor Strange, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is unleashed in theaters. Directed by horror legend Sam Raimi, the movie promises a darker, potentially scarier glimpse into the Marvel universe. With the plot of the film tied to fallout from Spider-Man: No Way Home, Loki, and WandaVision there is huge scope for more horror elements to be injected into the MCU.
While the Avengers series of movies maintained a more mainstream, audience-friendly style, with the advent of Disney Plus the MCU has diverged into a wider, more dramatic place. Raimi himself is no stranger to the superhero genre, helming the original Spider-Man trilogy of movies for Sony and his own dark superhero film Darkman in 1990. With that being said, just how close to his horror roots can Raimi go with Multiverse of Madness, and more importantly will Disney let him go there?
In the newest trailer for Multiverse of Madness, audiences are almost immediately greeted by a desolate landscape littered with ash and bones and a disintegrating Sanctum Sanctorum. Strange himself talks about nightmares, the Book of the Damned is visible at one point with him seemingly conjuring from it. Scenes of disintegrating realities, monsters, and cubic disintegration play out as epic music crescendos. The tv spot showed even more, more Gargantos, more Defender Strange and seemingly a look at zombified Strange.
It's hard to say from the images released so far, but it certainly seems like Raimi is taking a sharper turn into horror. Possibilities of a possessed Dr. Strange, what looks like a roiling world of demons trying to rip through realities, and many-tentacled and many-toothed monsters are certainly leaning further away from PG-13 than previous MCU features. Of course with Raimi's background in possessions and the undead, potentially linking Multiverse of Madness to the Marvel's What If…? series isn't that far-fetched and would definitely be a way of bringing in audiences who may be existing Raimi fans or just horror fans in general.
Considering Marvel's upcoming slate of projects, Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness could be the bridge between the more mature content on Disney Plus and the blockbuster film events. With upcoming releases like Morbius and Moon Knight and slated projects like Blade, there's certainly a run of horror-themed and more mature releases. While Morbius is preceding Multiverse of Madness by a month, it isn't yet an established property and apart from Michael Keaton's appearance, it's unclear currently how it will tie to the existing MCU.
Raimi is no stranger to Marvel universe building either. The Spider-Man trilogy of films that he directed arguably set the stage for the current MCU as fans know it, proving that superheroes were still hugely profitable and capable of creating multi-movie franchises. Raimi has proved himself capable of straddling the line between cult classic and big-budget projects while maintaining the integrity of both. Evil Dead began as a small budget passion project and more than 40 years later it is still a franchise that is going strong and inspiring devotion from fans new and old.
That is the kind of staying power that Disney and Marvel are looking for in their movies. The ability to keep drawing in audiences for characters old and new and keep creating ways for those characters to continue is ultimately what any studio is hoping to achieve. The proven track record by Raimi to do that is almost certainly going to give him some room to explore and possibly more trust from studio executives than other directors.
Ultimately, the scope for experimentation in the MCU is absolutely there, and there are plenty of reasons Marvel and Disney could be putting their faith in Raimi to do just that. The comic book storylines of the Marvel universe aren't just one note good guys defeat bad guys stories. They deal with very real issues and some of those issues are scary. Discrimination, grief, monstrousness as seen by others are all recurring themes dealt with just in the X-Men comics.
The MCU has the potential to be a truly horrifying place, at least in one timeline and reality. In the comics, the supernatural exists and is quite prevalent. Las Vegas has been swallowed into Hell, vampires are canon, flaming-skull-headed spirits of vengeance wheelie their motorcycles into the paths of sinners. Even Raimi's hero creation Ash from the Evil Dead has crossed over into the Marvel canon to fight the hordes of the undead heroes in Marvel's Zombies vs. Army of Darkness. There are rumors that a Rated R version of Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness exists along with the expected PG-13 cut. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen but if it is, it's safe to say that fans will almost certainly flock to see it. Just ask Deadpool.