Marvel Studios has always been very good at not giving too much away in trailers, though we'd argue that wasn't exactly the case with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as an awful lot was shown in advance. In fairness, that certainly hasn't hurt the sequel's chances of success, as the movie opened to a colossal $450 million at the worldwide box office this weekend.
For the most part, Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch being the main villain was successfully kept under wraps, and the actress shared her thoughts on that during an interview with Variety.
"I knew I was gonna be in Doctor Strange, but I thought I was gonna be in an ensemble thing. At first, I think I was nervous and conflicted because I hadn’t finished WandaVision yet, but we were almost finished. And I was like, 'Oh my god, how do I make this all work together?'" she explained. "We got there; I got there. And it became an amazing opportunity to have people be won over by this woman in WandaVision and feel for her, and then, you know, manipulate them into this film, where they get to be on her side and then feel conflicted themselves. So I thought that was a great opportunity."
Of course, part and parcel of being a baddie means Wanda Maximoff commits some truly heinous acts, including brutally slaughtering the entire Illuminati, a group of heroes from another world. According to Olsen, the original plan called for her to "kill more" in the Doctor Strange sequel.
"I was also supposed to kill more. I had a hard time with it," she confessed. "I was like, these are human beings and Wanda is okay with ending their lives? But I just had to buckle down and think all these people are in her way and she’s warned Doctor Strange not to get in her way. And he did. He didn’t listen. And so I just had to go from that point of view."
The Scarlet Witch also kills countless innocent sorcerers at Kamar-Taj, so redemption won't come easy for the fallen Avenger. Her story arc appears to be following that of her comic book counterpart as Wanda went down a similarly dark route during Avengers Disassembled when she laid waste to Earth's Mightiest Heroes and killed Ant-Man, Jack of Hearts, The Vision, and Hawkeye.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing in theaters.