Theories and Trailer Breakdown: Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness

With the Superbowl here, there was no doubt we’d get to see some great new movie content; and oh boy, did Marvel not disappoint.

Today’s trailer breakdown is all about Doctor Strange: Into the Multiverse of Madness, and right off the bat I got to say this is one of my most anticipated movies of the year.

The visuals look stunning and the amount of cameos reported for this movie make my little nerd heart swoon. But with that, let’s get into the trailer and see what we can find!

We start the trailer off with Doctor Strange telling the audience of his nightmares. We’re shown the Sanctorum, it’s crumbling apart with the same effects used in the What If? episode What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

It seems the What If? show and Multiverse of Madness will be very connected, even sharing a few characters like Captain Carter who you can spot on the official poster.

While Strange is talking we get shots of our new character, America Chavez, who can create star-shaped portals to help her travel the multiverse. She’s also a member of the Young Avengers, that marks another member for the upcoming team.

America is restrained by this monster, it looks like it’s covered in some sort of symbol or rune, established in Wandavision. We also get another look at the star portals which will no doubt be helping Strange travel to different worlds.

The line “And the nightmare begins’” ends with a shot of the broken watch that is important to the Strange movies, it’ll no doubt play a role in this one too. The movie seems to be about time, either time is running out or it’s stopped completely.

The trailer then cuts to Strange performing some spell, the magic is red similar to Wanda’s, and we also get the line “I did what I had to do” which most likely relates to his role in the Spiderman: No Way Home movie.

We can also see someone else in that room with him while he performs the spell, I’m not sure who this could be. Because Strange is using red magic it leads me to think maybe Wanda is teaching him how to tap into the multiverse like we saw her do during the post credit scene in Wandavision.

Strange then slams the red wiggly woos onto a book, this doesn’t look like the Darkhold as it appears much smaller; though it is hard to tell.

We see Wong for what could be the final time, there were rumours later last year that he would be killed off in this movie and with the look of him, it could be true. We later see in the trailer that he is struggling for help, could this be the scene where he dies?

We see more shots from the previous trailer featuring Wanda, it’s also interesting to know that Vision was aware of the multiverse and at some point, had researched it enough to know it was dangerous.

This trailer gives us clearer shots of what could be an important character for this movie, Rintrah, who is said to give Doctor Strange an updated outfit that will most likely resemble his comic counterpart; a theme for phase 4 MCU.

He's the large, green bull!

And we do see during this trailer that Strange’s trusty cloak is torn, this may be why Strange visits Rintrah in the first place only to end up in a war against another multiverse.

Baron Mordo returns, like the previous trailer we don’t really see much of him, though we do know he’s responsible for the Doctors’ arrest.

We get more shots of the black slime(?) destroying the buildings, this happened in What If? when the evil Strange took too much power and messed with the multiverse multiple times. Could this be why it’s happening here? Has Strange messed with the multiverse too much or is it a direct effect of all the different multiversal events happening at the same time.

This movie is a direct result of shows like Wandavision, Loki, What If? and No Way Home which all opened or broke the multiverse at the same time; really all around 27 minutes from the end.

Speaking of Strange being arrested, he’s taken through this museum-type building. Some people believe this to be an alternate Avengers tower as there has been merchandise leaked of a different Avengers symbol.

However, others believe it to be the X-Men mansion or the Fantastic Four’s apartment.

I don’t think it’s any of them, I believe this is the meeting place or headquarters of the Illuminati. Not that Illuminati, the Marvel one.

This was a group of the biggest brains in the marvel comics: Iron Man, Charles Xavier, Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, etc.

I think we’re going to see a version of that group, with reports of Tom Cruise being Iron Man making even more sense now. This is further proven with a voice cameo from none other than Charles Xavier himself, AKA Patrick Stewart.

The subtitles call him a mystery voice, but c’mon, we know...

Anyone who’s ever seen an X-Men movie should easily be able to identify his voice, so not only is it somewhat confirmed we have the MCU equivalent of the Marvel Illuminati, but we also finally get to see the X-men, or at least a version of them.

Reports have also said that Kevin Feige is considering retconning the Ralph Boner joke from Wandavision, which left a lot of people, myself included, unhappy. So, Ralph Boner could actually be Quicksilver.

We further see the use of America Chavez’s star portals, with her and Strange hoping to new dimensions like it’s Into the Spiderverse. We’re taken to a time with dinosaurs as well as what looks like a completely animated world, so not only will this movie be 3D but 2D as well!

This movie has some amazing special effects, this scene of Strange splitting up into cubes is amazing. I’m not sure why he’s like that but I do believe this is mid fight with another version of himself. We also get reused shots from the last trailer of the evil Strange from What If?

It’s weird to me how he’s set up to be a villain in this movie, however, I don’t think that will be the case. At the end of What If? he's shown to have changed his ways and actually helps save the multiverse in that series, so why change all of a sudden?

I think this movie will offer us a lot of red herrings, the true villain might not be revealed yet or it could be someone in plain sight, cough Wanda cough.

A new figure lit up in flames or cosmic energy is seen fighting Wanda, now at first, I thought this could be Johnny Storm, The Human Torch. But looking more closely it seems to either be a version of Captain Marvel or Monica Rambeau.

We last saw her in Wandavision with her feud between the Scarlet Witch non-existent, so what gives?

I also think this could be Nova, the helmet gives me those vibes, but it wouldn’t make sense for him to appear in this movie, rather a Guardians one.

If this is Monica, it further implies that Wanda will be the big baddie of the movie. Her story arc through Wandavision and even movies like Captain America: Civil War have been slowly setting up this evil side of her. I can’t wait!

I do believe in this movie we are going to get a big Wanda arc, some more character development for her and possibly an unhappy ending. I don’t think she’s going to die, not when Wandavision was one of the most popular shows of last year and especially not now that mutants are being introduced.

I don’t think Marvel would pass up an opportunity to hear Wanda say, “No more mutants”. But I definitely don’t think this movie will end well for her, will she find Billy and Tommy? Will her life adopt aspects from Westview?

On that note, we do see more of Wanda’s home in Westview, now I'm unsure whether this version of her is from Multiverse of Madness or from Wandavision. Again, the movie really focuses on the aspect of time.

I’m just going to number the Wandas for clarity: Wanda 1 will be the Wandavision Wanda while Wanda 2 will be the Multiverse of Madness version. Makes sense? Good.

Wanda 1 seems to be wearing the same clothes that she wore during the final few moments with her family in the Wandavision show, while Wanda 2 is wearing her superhero costume from MOM. We know this simply because her new costume has sleeves whereas her other one didn’t.

Whether, again, this is time related or dimension hoping; we will be seeing more from the Wandavision era.

More characters from What If? seem to make an appearance with the Superbowl trailer showing a little more footage of some Marvel Zombies. We see one of the various Doctor Strangers pull some magic trick and turn into what looks like a zombie version of the hero.

I’m not certain if this is an actual zombie or a result of a spell gone wrong.

The actual Superbowl TV spot only shows a few seconds of different footage which mainly contain different shots of scene we have either already seen or shots from the newest trailer.

The main trailer ends with the release date of May 6th, 2022, and I for one cannot wait!

I know I haven’t discussed everything seen in the trailer, but these moments just jumped out at me the most. If you’d like to learn more, then I’ll be linking some theory videos below that go more in depth, feel free to check them out!

3C Films:

Heavy Spoilers:

The Reel Rejects:

Here's the Superbowl trailer too!