Making superhero blockbusters is a tricky endeavor, and there are times in which an added amount of effort is necessary to make the final product as good as possible. That's apparently been the case with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Marvel Studios' upcoming sequel attracted a lot of attention late last year when it was reported that it would go through "significant" reshoots. The additional photography was reported to have come to an end three months later.
According to some new comments from the film's star, however, it seems the movie still isn't quite finished. Benedict Cumberbatch attended the 2022 BAFTA Awards (where his film, The Power of the Dog, won Best Picture). It was during an interview at the event that the actor seemingly revealed that new reshoots for Multiverse of Madness had taken place.
When the interviewer joked that not everyone could live in L.A. all the time like him, Cumberbatch replied: "Neither can I, but I've been having a very nice time there doing reshoots for Doctor Strange." The interviewer then asked him if that was what he had been doing, to which Cumberbatch replied, "It is. Yeah."
The actor could have been referring to the reshoots that were revealed in November 2021, but his wording appears to indicate the additional photography was much more recent.
If reshoots did indeed take place, it's not that surprising. Earlier in 2022, the film's director, Sam Raimi, indicated that, while he believed they were done, he was willing to go back for more if the situation called for it:
"I wish I knew the answer to that question. [...] I think we're done, but we just cut everything. We're just starting to test the picture, and we'll find out if there's anything that's got to be picked up. If something's unclear or [there's] another improvement I can make in this short amount of time left, I'll do it. One thing I know about the Marvel team is they won't stop. They’ll keep pushing it until it's as close to being great as it could."
While it's unusual for a Marvel Studios film to go through so much apparent restructuring (publicly, at least), the House of Ideas is no stranger to tweaking projects up until the last minute. The Avengers, for example, famously had its Shawarma-centered post-credits scene shot after the movie's premiere. Similarly, Spider-Man: No Way Home underwent some special-effects improvements following its release.
As Kevin Feige explained during a talk at the New York Film Academy in 2019, reshoots and restructuring are an integral part of Marvel Studios' creative process (starting at the 12:30 mark):
"Reshoots are key to our films, starting with [Iron Man], because it's great. And we always say, 'We're smart filmmakers at Marvel, but we're not geniuses.' And the best way to give notes on a movie is to watch the movie. So, we make the movie and then watch it and go, 'Oh, yeah. No, that's not right. That doesn't work.' And [we have] a system now that can be quite precise and quite efficient, in sometimes one day, sometimes fifteen days, sometimes more, to go in and continue to make the movie the best it can be. [...] When we schedule our films, we schedule the production period and then we schedule the additional-photography period, for, say, two or three months after the director's cut's delivered. And, people don't ask us anymore because they know it's the system, but they would go, 'Oh, what will you be reshooting, then?' And we'd go, 'We don't know. If we knew, we wouldn't do it.'"
As such, the Doctor Strange sequel (seemingly) undergoing reshoots again should not be a cause for concern, so much as a sign that Marvel Studios is working to make the film live up to its high-quality standards.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will arrive in theaters on May 6, 2022.