Kevin Feige on why director Scott Derrickson left Doctor Strange 2

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is Marvel’s next big tentpole movie, and the studio is seemingly doing everything it can to replicate the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home. The second solo adventure for Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) promises to delve into the multiverse to an extent we’ve never seen, bringing in characters from the Fox X-Men films, the Disney+ animated What If? series, and who knows what else. If Marvel has their way, it’s going to be yet another moviegoing event that gets everyone talking.

Back in 2020, it was reported that Scott Derrickson, the director of the first Doctor Strange movie, had left the sequel. With few details being made public, Derrickson’s decision to step down from the film fueled speculation among fandom. One of the largest prevailing theories was that Derrickson’s vision for Doctor Strange was too dark, too scary, for what Marvel had in mind.

But with the sequel only a few months off, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige is sharing a bit more information about why the split happened.

Doctor Strange 2 director left over “creative differences.” 

According to Feige, there’s no sensational story behind why Scott Derrickson left Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “We love Scott and I think Scott feels the same,” Feige told Empire. “Nobody believes it, but it was just creative differences.”

“Creative differences” is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in Hollywood, and can mean anything from extensive behind-the-scenes drama to a simpler disagreement about the vision for a project. However, Feige is laying to rest one popular fan theory that part of the reason Scott Derrickson and Doctor Strange co-writer C. Robert Cargill left the film was because their vision for the story was too dark. After all, the director/writer duo went on to do the movie Black Phone, which is based on one of Joe Hill’s short stories and has plenty of horror elements in it. Was the horror vibe what caused the divide?

“There’s been some thought that was the creative difference with Scott and Marvel, and it was not,” Feige said. “Because we love that idea. The intention was that Strange would guide us into a much creepier side of the world.”

This all matches up pretty well with what Cargill said about his departure in 2021: “[Derrickson] wanted to do one movie, and Marvel wanted to do another movie.” So while we may never know too much more, at least we know the horror movie element of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness wasn’t the aspect of the film that caused the split.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness release date

After Derrickson and Cargill’s departure, Marvel brought on veteran Spider-Man director Sam Raimi to helm the film (a move which Derrickson himself praised), and Loki writer/executive producer Michael Waldron to re-write it from the ground up. “We tried not to be afraid of going to places that will make the audience go, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I just saw that,'” Waldron explained. “But they’re not gonna care unless they’re invested in the main character. And Strange is such a fascinating hero.”

Given that Patrick Stewart confirmed his involvement in the movie and that there’s at least one other high profile cameo rumor floating around, we’re inclined to believe Waldron that there will be quite a bit of shocking stuff in the Doctor Strange sequel.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 6, 2022.

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