When Scott Derrickson exited Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and rumors surfaced that he wanted to introduce more horror elements that Marvel wasn’t into, it didn’t make any sense. Derrickson is a horror guy, Marvel knew who they were hiring and they must’ve done so for a reason, even if the first movie didn’t incorporate much of it. And those rumors looked especially silly when they replaced Derrickson with Sam Raimi, whose horror background is legendary.
Speaking with Fandango, Raimi confirmed that Kevin Feige’s intent was to introduce “elements of horror” to make a “scarier” movie, the first of its kind in the MCU.
“I think what [Kevin] meant, from my point of view, is that this film has a flavor of horror to it,” Raimi said. “I think when the original director, Scott Derrickson, and Kevin promoted the coming of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, they said that it was going to be the first Marvel superhero film that had an element of horror to it. I hope I’m not misquoting them. But even after Scott left the picture due to creative differences, that was still the mandate — to make the first Marvel film that had an element of horror. So, I kept true to their original statements.”
He continued,
“I think that’s what Kevin means, because it is spooky at some times and scary at others. It’s unknown what you’ll find in the multiverse. It’s within that unknown that suspense and darkness exists. A tool to titillate the audience’s fear. Plus, Doctor Strange in the comics has always dealt in universes and dimensions that were quite spooky, so we tried to bring some of that into this film.”
What we’ve seen in the trailers definitely suggests a darker film with spookier imagery, including the arrival of the Marvel Zombies which should be pretty ghastly. I think this is the most I’ve been hyped for a Marvel film since Avengers: Endgame.
