Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

This is a one and done film, i saw spidey nwh 3 times already. I might watch this again in a few months, but i dont see the point.

Yeah it won't have the legs of the big MCU movies since most people, if you ask them "should I go see Strange 2" they'll just put in caveats (how much do you like MCU, etc) whereas its universal positive word of mouth for stuff like Spidey or Infinity War.

Still, Dr. Strange 2 made more money than the entire Strange 1 run in 12 days, its gonna probably end up somewhere in the $800-900m range total worldwide (on a budget of $200m) and it is banned in China so it puts it ahead of most of the MCU movies outside the biggies. Its already crossed $650m worldwide. Still puts it below Black Panther and Captain Marvel though.

Marvel has a huge China problem still, that market can add 20-30% to any big tentpole movie and they are more or less completely shut out of there right now. Chinese audiences are super hyped for Avatar 2 (more than US audiences probably lol) so its interesting to see how non political Disney is with that IP, whereas Marvel is still a bit schizo when it comes to topics China does NOT like in Marvel/Pixar.

It's called the movie is not top tier mcu, don't think too much about it.

Why is it banned in China?

China has banned all Marvel movies for now, they will give random bullshit reasons (ghosts, anti-authoritarian, maps showing tibet, etc) but basically China is not happy that Marvel partnered with Simon Lui (Shang Chi) and Chloe Zhao (Eternals) both of whom criticized China in the past and are of chinese descent. Like they gave the reason for Spiderman No Way Home not allowed because it showed the Statue of Liberty, but thats probably not the whole story.

Basically they want Marvel/Disney to bend the knee and distance themselves from anyone who criticizes China publicly, and until they do that, its unlikely Marvel movies will be allowed in China. China does not allow LGBT characters either and Disney has refused to censor movies for their market, Dr Strange 2 was banned in most Middle Eastern countries for the lesbo mom scene.

There is some granularity though, Disney also is the distributor behind Avatar but James Cameron and Avatar 1 were HUGELY popular in China.

whole thing is kinda funny, Disney desperately wants dat chinese money BUT american zoomers get super mad at Disney for not doing LGBT stuff.

Chukzombi said:

This is a one and done film, i saw spidey nwh 3 times already. I might watch this again in a few months, but i dont see the point.

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Yeah I think that's why GOTG, Infinity War, Ragnarok, and the last hour of Endgame are my favorites. Watched those probably more than the rest of the movies combined. Most others I've only seen once unless I happen to be visiting my parents and it's on TV and they feel like watching it. Civil War is up there too even if objectively it isn't as good of a movie as IW or GOTG.

MusicForFish said:

Pizza Papa stole the show. A+.

There were several fan service moments that I was into but on the whole, this movie stunk. Hopefully they get the mcu back on the rails and into a cohesive arc asap, otherwise I'll probably tune out whatever else they release. At least until FF4 and our lord and savior DOOM finally makes his appearance.

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what if Dr. Doom is a fat chick

I mean I haven't been to an actual movie theater since many months before the pandemic hit,but we went on Thursday afternoon to avoid asshole Twitter spoilers.

I suspect MCU movies where people have an urge to experience it without spoilers will always have a greater front-loaded box office.

Is there a D+ release date yet?

Woof. This movie’s script was a fucking mess. The entirety of it is based around 2 macguffins that ultimately didn’t mean shit. I was kind of expecting more, you know, madness in the multiverse of madness? They go to 3 places and that’s it.

The fact that it’s Raimi though made it enjoyable. Glad they gave 200 mil to turn Scarlet Witch into a deadite.

Animosity said:

Is there a D+ release date yet?

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all future MCU movies will be on D+ exactly 45 days after theatrical release. So Strange 2 should be on D+ and VOD on June 11

MusicForFish said:

How much cool shit did they leave on the cutting room floor? Were there other universes they had planned but scrapped?

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Sounds like there was a bunch cut. There was supposed to be a Ghost Rider fight scene in one of the universe jump cuts.

MusicForFish said:

How much cool shit did they leave on the cutting room floor? Were there other universes they had planned but scrapped?

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From what I’ve heard since they started on this movie pre-covid everything script wise got all fucked up in 2020. Then Raimi and Waldron came on board and rewrote almost the whole thing. Then Disney shifted its release schedule so it went through another rewrite. Then Disney pushed the film back so I went through another round where Raimi wanted to add in a bunch of other stuff. I imagine they’re almost through production before the cuts started down and they’re basically working with what they have available.

I know films go through multiple rewrites but this thing seems like it just went through a shredder.

MusicForFish said:

Right. Didn't it morph from originally being set as the first horror in the mcu to whatever this was?

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I definitely think that was Raimi’s original intent but Disney gotta Disney. Can’t be too spooky.