Before Iron Man kicked off the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008, director Sam Raimi had created his own little self-contained Spider-Man trilogy with Tobey Maguire playing the titular hero. Fast forward to today, and Maguire’s Spider-Man returned in Spider-Man: No Way Home. And now Raimi is going to release of his very own MCU movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Given that both Maguire and Raimi are back in the Marvel game, it’s only natural that fans are calling for them to get back together for a Spider-Man reboot, a whole 15 years later. While this might seem unrealistic, Raimi has recently given everyone a dash of hope.
Speaking to Fandango ahead of his debut MCU flick, Raimi opened up on the prospect of reuniting with Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man 4:
"I’ve come to realize after making Doctor Strange that anything is possible, really anything in the Marvel universe, any team-ups. I love Tobey. I love Kirsten Dunst. I think all things are possible. I don’t really have a story or a plan. I don’t know if Marvel would be interested in that right now. I don’t know what their thoughts are about that. I haven’t really pursued that. But it sounds beautiful. Even if it wasn’t a Spider-Man movie, I’d love to work with Tobey again, in a different role."
Maguire was able to return in No Way Home because that movie dealt with the multiverse, where there are lots of versions of Spider-Man running around. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will take things up a notch. “I guess I would say that … Spider-Man broke open characters from the multiverse could visit our universe,” Raimi said. “But this is the first time that characters from our universe will go out into the multiverse and experience other universes. So, it’s going to be a continuation, but that, I think, is one of the biggest appeals. Finding other realities, and how they rhyme with our own, or how they are completely the opposite, or variations thereof. I think therein lies the interest of this picture.”
Perhaps Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man will play a part in the movie. Who knows?
Tickets now on sale for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Sam Raimi’s love affair with all things Marvel is extremely well documented. However, it may come as a surprise to you that the director has only seen four MCU movies. Given that there are currently 27 in total, he has a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully, his knowledge of comics is unparalleled, which came in handy for Doctor Strange 2:
"I had seen Iron Man, the first Avengers, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange, and little clips of the other movies. They’ve made 28 movies. I’ve only really seen four or five, so I’ll say not that familiar. That’s part one. By the way, I loved what I saw, but not that familiar. But part two is I was a giant fan of the Marvel comic books of the ’70s and ’80s and into the ’90s. So, I was super familiar with the characters, and their stories, and their interactions. That’s what the Marvel movies are based on. So that’s my answer."
Now, onto the movie itself…
Doctor Strange 2 will bring in elements of horror
Raimi came to prominence as the director behind the Evil Dead movies. We probably won’t see anything quite that intense in Doctor Strange 2, but his experience with horror films will still come in handy. “t is spooky at some times and scary at others,” he said. “It’s unknown what you’ll find in the multiverse. It’s within that unknown that suspense and darkness exists. A tool to titillate the audience’s fear. Plus, Doctor Strange in the comics has always dealt in universes and dimensions that were quite spooky, so we tried to bring some of that into this film.”
Part of the creepy factor may be the alternate versions of themselves that our heroes run into. “The movie is a journey into the multiverse, so you do see different iterations of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, and even Lizzie Olsen’s character of Wanda Maximoff,” Raimi said. “So, the actors have to play that. It’s a great challenge for them and great fun to direct them playing these altered versions of themselves.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness premieres on May 4. Tickets are on sale now!
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