The second trailer for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness – the 28th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a five-way follow-up to Spider-Man: No Way Home, WandaVision, Loki, What If…? and, of course, the first Doctor Strange film – has been released.
It appears to pick up where No Way Home left off, with Dr. Stephen Strange (as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch) reaping the consequences of his multiversal havoc-wreaking in that film.
“I did what I had to do to protect our world,” he says off-camera, to which his sidekick-come-Sorcerer Supreme, Wong (played by Benedict Wong), replies: “You cannot control everything, Strange. You opened the doorway between universes, and we don’t know who or what will walk through it.”
Strange then turns to Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) to help, knowing she’d opened the multiverse herself during the events of WandaVision. It’s implied that Maximoff has completed her transition into the villainous Scarlett Witch, as she says to Strange later in the trailer: “You break the rules and become a hero – I do it, I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.”
Elsewhere in the trailer, we see two variants of Strange (à la Loki) – including the evil variant seen in What If…? and a mutated, zombie-esque variant – the classic Marvel villain Shuma Gorath, a variant of Captain Marvel, our first proper look at the dimension-hopping America Chavez (played in the film by Xochitl Gomez), and a tease at the return of Charles Xavier / Professor X, as portrayed in the X-Men films by Patrick Stewart.
Check out the second trailer for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness below:
Meanwhile, a new poster for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness comes with a teaser of its own: in a shard of glass towards the bottom-right corner, we see a glimpse of Captain Carter’s shield. The character – a variant of Captain America, by which Peggy Carter takes the mantle instead of Steve Rogers – also made her debut in last year’s What If…? series.
Take a look at the poster for yourself:
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is primed for release in cinemas on May 6. A synopsis for the film – the first trailer for which landed back in December of 2021 – reads: “Dr. Stephen Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens a portal to the multiverse. However, a threat emerges that may be too big for his team to handle.”
It’s the first of three MCU films due to hit the silver screen in 2022. Thor: Love And Thunder will follow on July 8, with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever slated for November 11. In addition, Marvel Studios have three Disney+ series in the pipeline this year: Moon Knight (which will premiere on March 30), She Hulk and Ms. Marvel.
In a four-star review of the first Doctor Strange film, NME’s Nick Levine wrote that it “definitely offers a fresh spin on Marvel’s usual ‘superhero saves the world’ narrative”.
He continued: “[Scott] Derrickson’s film isn’t without flaws: some humorous moments feel shoehorned in and [Rachel] McAdams is wasted in a disappointingly two-dimensional role. But if you’re looking for an antidote to comic book movie fatigue, Doctor Strange could be the one.”
