Had Marvel Studios decided against bringing Wong to the big screen, it's fair to say no one could have blamed them. Wong has typically been portrayed as the Sorcerer Supreme's manservant on the page, but the MCU instead made him Stephen Strange's mentor and then equal.
It was a mise move and one which has seen Wong usurp the Doctor as Earth-616's Sorcerer Supreme. Their friendship has been a blast to follow and Benedict Wong has gone on to make heaps of memorable appearances outside the Doctor Strange franchise.
With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Spider-Man: No Way Home among them, all eyes are on what's for the character.
Talking to Men's Health, Benedict looked back on his journey to becoming perhaps the MCU's most popular recurring character.
"You know, thank goodness for portals," he said. "I couldn't just move into everyone else's franchise without them. I've loved this character. I'm a massive Marvel comic book fan. I collected Spider-Man comics when I was a kid, and to meet Stan Lee and sidle up to him when I was at one of the premieres - I felt like a kid."
"I went to him and I said, 'You don't know me, but...,' and he immediately said, 'You're Wong! And you're great!' I'll take it for either way he could've meant 'Wong!'" the actor continued. "It was a dream come true. And now that the character is Sorcerer Supreme, I feel like I'm being promoted through the ranks. It's gone past the sidekick phase."
Benedict went on to say the dynamic between Strange and Wong is "two Sherlocks...instead of Sherlock and Watson," and was then asked about rumours he's already been enlisted to return as Wong in Avengers: Secret Wars.
"I saw that! I thought, Oh, is that what I'm doing? Thanks for telling me, IMDb. Why am I the last person to know?" he joked. "But I loved the Secret Wars comics. I collected them all."
"I even played a Dungeons & Dragons-style Secret Wars game at the time. I played as Spider-Man - I insisted on it. I can't wait for Secret Wars, the Beyonder, and all of that. I'm thrilled that IMDb is telling me that I'm doing it. I'd like to think that IMDb doesn't lie, you know?"
Strange and Wong being part of the next Avengers movies is likely a given, though we definitely wouldn't put any stock in IMDb listings at this early stage. As we write this, Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness scribe Michael Waldron is thought to be penning that and Avengers 5.