The director of Evil Dead and the Spider-Man trilogy may, in fact, be back in the superhero business. In an interview with Collider, director Sam Raimi seemingly admitted that he has accepted Marvel’s offer to helm the Doctor Strange sequel, Multiverse of Madness. Rumors of his involvement began in February shortly after the film’s original director, Scott Derrickson, revealed that he’d be dropping out due to creative differences.
“I loved Doctor Strange as a kid, but he was always after Spider-Man and Batman for me, he was probably at number five for me of great comic book characters,” Raimi described. “He was so original, but when we had that moment in Spider-Man 2 I had no idea that we would ever be making a Doctor Strange movie, so it was really funny to me that coincidentally that line was in the movie. I gotta say I wish we had the foresight to know that I was going to be involved in the project.”
According to Collider, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will tie into Disney’s WandaVision and Loki series – in fact, the head writer of the latter has been hired to rewrite the script. “The film recently hired Loki head writer Michael Waldron to rewrite the script from Jade Bartlett and has entered talks with Spider-Man‘s Sam Raimi to take over the directorial reigns on the project, much to the joy of fans and Derrickson alike,” the site reported.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will be released in theaters on November 5, 2021. It was originally slated to open on May 7, 2021, but Disney and Marvel Studios opted to delay many films due to the COVID-19 pandemic.