The sequel to the much underrated 2016 Doctor Strange film came out in 2022 – Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While the sequel was successful on a box office level, many fans including myself found Doctor Strange 2 to be underwhelming. I think the true culprit of the film was its marketing that promised us a mind bending rather than a simple MCU story. I mean for a film titled Multiverse of Madness, the film majorly takes place only in 3-4 universes. The other universes only popped up in the 39 second long sequence at the start of the film. The film had faced some creative differences with Scott Derrickson quitting the project as he had a much darker version in mind. Then Sam Raimi took over the reigns and gave us the film we have today.
After the release, the director revealed that about 40 minutes of the film was chopped off and I was infuriated by this as to why? Were more shows in a day worth the underwhelming result? Well, what can we do. The film also promised us a taste from horror genre. Well, we got something to say the least. However, in a recent Instagram post, Jeremy Simster who is a storyboard artist for Marvel revealed an artwork for a deleted scene in the film and well to say the least, it is jolly horrifying.
Doctor Strange 2- Wanda Decapitates Mordo in the Apple Orchard?
Well, the scene the Simster has revealed was mentioned by the writer of the film- Michael Waldron earlier this year. Seeing that Wanda was endangering not only this reality but countless others, Earth 616 Mordo goes to her to warn her. Yes, that was a smart move. When he goes to threaten her she kills him. Although, in his version Wanda reveals Mordo’s head when Strange comes to ask for her help. That scene takes place in the apple orchard.
The apple orchard was simply reality manipulated by Wanda. When she reveals the true form of the place we see it in ruins. In that particular scene we were going to see Mordo’s head being presented to Strange by Wanda as it would’ve been in those boxes where she collected the branches, twigs and flowers. However, in the storyboard it looks like the action is happening somewhere else. It looks the location where the climax of the film takes place- Mount Wundagore.
I don’t know maybe the storyboard was in early stages of development or maybe Waldron had changed the location later. Regardless to say the scene was too graphic for a PG-13 rating which is precious to Kevin Feigi and thus we never saw it. However, if it would’ve really fun to see and then maybe the film would’ve lived up to its marketing as a horror film. Now that this scene is not in the film it is safe to assume that Mordo is still alive on Earth 616. Check out the artwork here:
An off screen death would be highly anti-climatic. What I find interesting though is that Marvel was ready to kill off Mordo at the very start of the film despite reserving him as a potential villain. That means Mordo probably won’t have a bigger role to play in the upcoming movies of the MCU. However, Doctor Strange is going to be busy as a bee. Despite his solo flick not announced at SDCC’22, I think he is going to make many appearances and cameos in the upcoming films and series. Maybe even in some post credit scenes.
Speaking of post credit scenes, Marvel President Kevin Feigi talked about how he decides the post credit scenes in the MCU,“The truth is, all of the tags are never just about the future. There are tags that are eating shwarma, Captain America saying you know you gotta learn patience, sometimes, you know, you wait for something that’s not worth it. So they are always fun for us,” Feige revealed. “We don’t want everything to feel the same. So some of the tags will connect and some of them won’t. Some of the films and shows will connect; some of them won’t.”
He further said, “I think it’s just as important that we can have standalone introductory stories like Ms. Marvel, like Moon Knight, in addition to things that interconnect and build towards the larger story. A lot of what we’ve been doing has been building to this larger story, obviously with The Kang Dynasty and the Multiverse Saga, and now I think people will, I hope, come along for the ride. Both where it’s you’re on the express train to the finale, also when it’s fun, as many of our Phase 1, 2 and 3 films were.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is currently streaming on Disney+
If you have any questions regarding Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, feel free to ask in the comments below. For more content, stay tuned. As usual, like, subscribe and share our articles as we here are trying to build a community of people High on Cinema!
