Stephen Strange is back! After becoming a Master of the Mystic Arts in 2016’s Doctor Strange, saving half the universe in Avengers: Infinity War, and breaking open the multiverse in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange is returning in his second solo outing. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will see Strange working to fix the problems he caused with his spell in No Way Home while dealing with the new threats posed by the multiverse. With a release date of May 6, information is leaking out at a tantalizing rate, and the latest tidbit to drop is the movie’s run time.
Although Marvel is keeping the details under wraps (like always), a pretty clear picture of the movie is shaping up. We know that Strange is going to be hopping across different realities in the multiverse, and that he’ll meet at least one or two variants of himself during his travels. We also know that he’ll seek the help of Wanda Maximoff, and that the movie will continue her evolution into the Scarlet Witch, a powerful nexus being who’s prophesied to cause the end of the world. (If the details of WandaVision are at all fuzzy for you, now’s a good time to go back and re-watch the Disney+ series.) We also know that Stephen will team up with America Chavez, a teenager from another reality who has the power to punch star-shaped portals into different universes. Finally, we know that Stephen will come face to face with the Illuminati, a shadowy group of superheroes who secretly control the world, and that Patrick Stewart will be reprising his role as Professor X from Fox’s X-Men films.
Simply put, there’s a LOT happening in this movie. Any one of the plot points above would be enough for a feature-length film in their own right, yet somehow they’re all being crammed together into one movie! Plus, there are a million characters rumored to have cameos, including Loki, Agent Mobius, and Sylvie from the Disney Plus series Loki, and Tom Cruise as a variant of Tony Stark. Luckily, Multiverse of Madness has some major talent at the helm, with Sam Raimi directing and Michael Waldron (Loki) penning the script, so as wild as the story sounds, we know it’s in good hands.
However, there was no way this was ever going to be a short movie. Now we finally know just how much of a behemoth it is.
Doctor Strange 2 Run Time Leaked
With the release date now only a few weeks away, theaters are preparing to open up ticket sales. One tickets sales site in Brazil inadvertently leaked the movie’s run time on its ticket page, revealing that Multiverse of Madness will clock in at 2 hours and 28 minutes.
Okay, so it’s no Return of the King (God, that movie was long.) But it does illustrate that Multiverse of Madness isn’t just going to be a sequel: it’s going to be a major Marvel event. Look at the run times of some of the other Marvel sequels. Thor: The Dark World came in at 1 hour 52 minutes, and Iron Man 3 and Thor: Ragnarok were each 2 hours and 10 minutes. However, Captain America: Civil War, which was more of an Avengers event than a solo outing, was 2 hours and 28 minutes, just like Multiverse of Madness. It’s clear that Marvel has big plans for Doctor Strange’s next adventure.
Benedict Cumberbatch himself weighed in on the movie’s large scope in an interview with Deadline on March 17. He called the process of making Multiverse of Madness “tough,” saying that “To try and make a massive film like that under the constrictions of a pandemic and the delays that have ensued, partly because of The Power of the Dog, but also because of everything that was lined up and had to be pushed back from Marvel.” Like many Marvel films, Multiverse of Madness went back for reshoots shortly before the first trailer released, reportedly to shoot scenes that were logistically impossible during the height of Covid.
With all the variants, cameos, plot lines, and tie-ins to other Marvel projects like Loki and What If…?, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness promises to be an epic ride when it premieres on May 6.
(image: Marvel)
