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 and today we have the inside story of how some of the horror moments in the film came to be. Especially the gruesome death of Black Bolt.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Who came up with the “What Mouth?” Line?
Let’s just recap what happened in Dr. Strange 2, Wanda sleepwalked into her 838 Earth self. She attacks the Illuminati building and kills all the Illuminati including Captain Carter, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Professor X, Black Bolt, Reed Richards and Mordo. However, out of everyone the most brutal death was the first one- Black Bolt. To be fair, Wanda didn’t kill him, technically. After the smartest man in the world warned Wanda that Black Bolt can kill her by one whisper from his mouth. She asks, “What Mouth?”
Wanda makes Black Bolt’s mouth disappear and he panics, making the best decision of the life. He screams but as there was no opening his scream remains in his mouth and bounces from his mouth to the brain. The insides of his body are not resistant to his whispers. Exploding his brain and killing him in one of the worst ways possible. While the scene didn’t look that gruesome due to the PG-13 rating but once you understand how it happened, it is pretty horrific if you let your imagination run wild.
Michael Waldron- the writer of the movie talked about the inside story behind Black Bolt’s death in an interview with Empire. Waldron mentioned, “I was at a point in the script where I was like, ’Shit, I don’t know what to do. The movie needs to get drunk. We wanted the first death to feel really horrific: ‘Listen, don’t fuck with Wanda.’ We were sitting on Zoom discussing how we kill Black Bolt, and somebody said his power is shooting ultra-powerful energy from his mouth. And I swear to God, without missing a beat, Sam goes, ‘What mouth?’ And Sam just painted the scene for us, `… and then you just cut to him, Wanda’s just ripped his mouth closed, and he screams, and his head explodes.’ That’s master of horror Sam Raimi for you.”
He further added, “It was the biggest eureka moment of the film. Sam’s initial reaction was caution, because he wasn’t there to just play the hits. Sam only cares about a Zombie Strange if it’s the right thing for Doctor Strange, not just because it’s cool if you’re a fan of Evil Dead. Sam’s like, ‘Alright, but if he’s going to do that, the souls of the damned should come after him,’ and suddenly Sam’s the ten-year-old in the room. That whole cloak-of-souls thing came from Sam being like, ‘You think you guys got some crazy shit?’ He elevated it even more with those demons.”
The Sam Raimi directed film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/the Scarlet Witch, Benedict Wong as Sorcerer Supreme Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, and Charlize Theron as Clea.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is currently streaming on Disney+ and has been released for 4K UHD Blu-ray and DVD.
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