Sam Raimi confirms he’s directing Doctor Strange 2?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the excellently titled follow-up to 2016’s Doctor Strange, may have found a director. It’s been rumored for a while that Sam Raimi — the guy behind the Evil Dead franchise, the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, and a lot more — was taking the lead after director Scott Derrickson dropped out of the project. Now, we have confirmation…sort of?

The other day, Raimi talked to ComingSoon.net about his upcoming Quibi horror series, 50 States of Fright. Somehow, Raimi got on the subject of a scene from Spider-Man 2 where muckraker J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) is trying to come up with a name for Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina). One of his employees Hoffman (played by Raimi’s brother, Ted Raimi) suggests they call him Doctor Strange. Jameson’s response? “That’s pretty good…but it’s taken!”

Did anyone else miss this reference the first time around? Because I absolutely did. However, learning that Raimi has had a liking for Doctor Strange for years does lend a little credibility to the rumor about him taking over the MCU sequel.

"I loved Doctor Strange as a kid, but he was always after Spider-Man and Batman for me, he was probably at number five for me of great comic book characters. He was so original, but when we had that moment in Spider-Man 2, I had no idea that we would ever be making a Doctor Strange movie, so it was really funny to me that coincidentally that line was in the movie. I gotta say I wish we had the foresight to know that I was going to be involved in the project."

Let’s say that again for the cheap seats: “I had no idea that we would ever be making a Doctor Strange movie” and “I wish we had the foresight to know that I was going to be involved in the project.”

Is that Raimi’s way of telling us he is indeed directing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? If you ask me, it looks like the puzzle pieces are starting to come together.

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h/t SYFY Wire