“When I originally joined in February 2020, Sam and I inherited the story that had been worked on by Scott and Jade Bartlett, the original author of the project,” he says. “It contained a lot of really cool ideas, and at first we just had to try to figure out our version of that story in time to start filming in May. Then COVID happened a month later and the film was pushed, which gave us an opportunity to start all over again and reconsider what we wanted the film to be. “
Although it had been confirmed at Comic-Con that Elizabeth Olsen would appear in the film as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, Waldron says that it was during this period that he and Raimi rebuilt the script that the idea came up to make Wanda the main villain – although Waldron adds that other villains had also been considered.
“There were different things,” he admits. “I think it’s been reported that there was once a Nightmare and that sort of thing. But when I got on board, it’s a multiverse story. And then it was always about trying to figure out who the multiverse opponent was. should be.”
Another factor that played into the development of Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness was when Sony Pictures was planned Spider-Man: No Way Home for December 2021, which put pressure on Strange into 2022. That meant the turnaround of the two films Multiverse of madness would no longer be Strange’s first interaction with the intricacies of the multiverse.
“It meant that Stephen would have had some real experience with the multiverse now that he had already been on a multiverse adventure,” Waldron says. “This is not his first rodeo, so to speak. So that kind of recontextualizes the way you approach all of this. He better understands the dangers of it.”
Waldron adds that Strange’s holdings with Peter, MJ and Ned in No way home gave him a better understanding of how to deal with teenagers – an important tool when he goes on universe-hopping with the new MCU hero America Chavez: “He had just been on adventures with children before this, and I think “It can be the biggest thing influencing how he would have contact with America. She was not a completely unknown size to him when it came to dealing with a teenager.”