In a recent interview with Inverse, award-winning composer Danny Elfman has finally confirmed that he is indeed reuniting with Sam Raimi for Marvel Studios’ highly-anticipated MCU sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Elfman also revealed he has already started doing some preliminary work on the Benedict Cumberbatch-led film.
“I am starting to do bits of pre-work for Doctor Strange 2 that Sam Raimi’s directing,” he said. “Even though I don’t start it for some months, there’s bits of recorded music they need for the sets.”
This marks the sixth collaboration between Elfman and Raimi, who have worked together on 1990’s Darkman, 1998’s A Simple Plan, 2002’s Spider-Man, 2004’s Spider-Man 2, and 2013’s Oz the Great and Powerful. However, this isn’t his first project with Marvel Studios as he previously scored 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
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Cumberbatch will next be reprising his role as Dr. Stephen Strange in the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man 3 in addition to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The sequel is being described as the first horror film in the MCU with Oscar nominee Benedict Cumberbatch returning as the titular sorcerer supreme and Elizabeth Olsen also appearing as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch. According to Kevin Feige, the upcoming Disney+ shows WandaVision and Loki will both directly impact the events the Doctor Strange sequel.
Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch appeared in Avengers: Endgame, where they were both last seen attending Tony Stark’s funeral. Loki also appeared in Endgame and was last seen after the events of the Avengers’ first battle in New York, where he escapes with the Tesseract cube.
Originally set to be directed by Scott Derrickson, the sequel will now be helm by Spider-Man‘s Sam Raimi with Loki head writer Michael Waldron set to rewrite the script that was first written by The Turning scribe Jade Bartlett. Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Benedict Wong will be reprising their roles, with Rachel McAdams recently confirmed to make her return as Dr. Christine Palmer.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will hit theaters on March 25, 2022.
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The first Doctor Strange movie was released in 2016 with Benedict Cumberbatch starring in the titular role. Joining him in the film were Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, and Michael Stuhlbarg as Nicodemus West. It also featured the MCU debut of critical characters from the pages of Marvel Comics, including Benedict Wong as Wong, plus Mads Mikkelsen as villain Kaecilius, and Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One (who is of Celtic origin in the film instead of East Asian origin). Doctor Strange was directed by Scott Derrickson, whose previous credits were primarily horror films like The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, and Deliver Us from Evil.
