Now that the much-anticipated sequel to Doctor Strange has been released in theaters around the world, we can compare the final product with what we saw in the various trailers and promotional materials. Without further ado, here is my list of what appear to be deleted scenes from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness!
[Warning: Spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness discussed below!]
Doctor Strange’s nightmare
The first trailer opens with a line from Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange: “Every night I have the same dream… and there, the nightmare begins.”
In the film this line is absent, but there’s a very similar one uttered by Wanda Maximoff during the assault on Kamar-Taj as she spoke about seeing her children in her dreams. She says: “Every night the same dream… and every day, the same nightmare. “
The alley
The scene you see portrayed in this shot is not present in the film, or rather, it has been modified. According to some old leaks, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) should have shown the dead body of Defender Strange to the two sorcerers before the scene in the pizzeria. And this would have happened in a New York alley.
In the final cut, however, America explains the functioning of the Multiverse in a pizzeria and then shows the corpse of Defender Strange on the roof of a building, instead of in the alley.
Defender Wong
The film begins with America Chavez and Defender Strange escaping from a giant magical creature guarding the Book of Vishanti. Apparently, there was a third person with them: Defender Wong, a variant of main Wong (played by Benedict Wong), also anticipated by the merchandise.
Deleted lines
Also in the first trailer, inserted in the second post-credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home, there were some lines that led the audience to think that the Doctor Strange sequel was more directly connected. Lines such as “You have opened the door between the two universes and we don’t know who or what can cross it,” said by Wong, are absent from the final cut.
Fun fact: in the first teaser trailer Wong said “Don’t cast that spell, it’s too dangerous,” which actually belonged to the first trailer of Spider-Man: No Way Home. This was completely absent from the film.
The crow
What many thought to be a harbinger of the presence of a supernatural or spirit creature, the creepy raven featured in the first teaser trailer (below), is missing in the final cut. Too bad, it was a tense shot and sported Sam Raimi‘s iconic style.
The Incursion
In the scene where Strange visits a universe destroyed following an incursion, the presence of Christine Palmer, the variant of his ex-girlfriend from the Illuminati universe, was cut off (or rather, digitally removed).
Mordo’s actions
Curiously, in the film there is no trace of the phrase “Your desecration of reality will not go unpunished” said by Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in the first trailer.
Probably this is a simple misdirection since during the promotional campaign Marvel Studios never revealed that the Mordo in the film was a variant of the one seen in the first chapter. Their intent, therefore, was to get the audience to believe that the film would also address the tension between Strange and Mordo that remained unresolved after the post-credits scene of the previous film.
Things just got out of hand
It had become a catchphrase, almost a meme, the sentence said by Sinister Strange in the first trailer: “Things just got out of hand”. Unfortunately, this sentence is absent from the final montage… more or less.
Although the evil variant of Strange did not utter it, the phrase is spoken by Reed Richards (John Krasinski) when, speaking of the betrayal of Supreme Strange, he quotes his last words.
Wanda’s heroic role
In one of the recent commercials, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) says “This is going to be fun.” This is totally absent from the final cut.
This and other early misleads with Mordo and Sinister Strange is a further misdirection of Marvel Studios to hide the main antagonist’s true identity. This was all to make us believe that Wanda was teaming up with Strange and company in this film. Those of us who follow leaks and spoilers, however, knew better.
Wanda’s murders
During an interview with Variety, Elizabeth Olsen revealed that her character was originally supposed to “kill more” in a preliminary version of the film:
“I was also supposed to kill more. I had a hard time with it. I was like, these are human beings and Wanda is okay with ending their lives? But I just had to buckle down and think all these people are in her way and she’s warned Doctor Strange not to get in her way. And he did. He didn’t listen. And so I just had to go from that point of view.” – Elizabeth Olsen via Variety
In addition to the death of the Illuminati, therefore, we should have seen other significant character deaths during the course of the film. Again this goes along with many leaks and rumors that had been going around for months now about a lot more cameos being filmed for the sequel.
Unknown deleted scenes from Doctor Strange 2
In a recent interview with Collider, director Sam Raimi revealed that the film’s preliminary editing was significantly longer than the final version (around 2 hours and 40 minutes), while the final length is more in line with the other projects. produced by Marvel Studios:
“Well, the first cut was I actually don’t remember the length of it. It was probably like two hours and 40 minutes, and it slowly came down even though we did the reshoots. We took out material even though the reshoots went in. So, it slowly got down to about two hours and five minutes is the total.” – Sam Raimi via Collider.
Is anything missing in this list of apparent deleted scenes or lines? If you can think of more, let us know in the comments or or Twitter @mycosmiccircus.
[Editor’s Note: This review was written by guest writer Luigi Parentela]
