Sam Raimi almost refused to direct “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” because of his “Spider-Man 3” experience

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Sam Raimi almost refused to direct "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" because of his "Spider-Man 3" experience

Sam Raimi is a well-known name among Marvel fans. A director who brought us the original trilogy about the fan-favorite web-slinger long before Marvel Cinematic Universe even existed.

The first two movies of the trilogy received critical acclaim and remained in the hearts of the fans as some of the best comic book movies ever made. But then, “Spider-Man 3” happened. The film received mixed reviews. And although some fans still loved it, there were plenty of those who called it inconsistent and inferior to the first two films. The blame was mostly put on Sony who was interfering in the creative work on the script and direction, which later resulted in Raimi leaving and cancelation of Spider-Man 4.

That unpleasant experience obviously took a toll on Raimi who almost refused to direct the upcoming MCU movie “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” after Scott Derrickson, director of the first Doctor Strange movie left the sequel due to creative differences.

“I didn’t know that I could face it again because it was so awful, having been the director of Spider-Man 3. The internet was getting revved up and people disliked that movie and they sure let me know about it. So, it was difficult to take back on. But then, I found out that there was an opening on Doctor Strange 2. My agent called me and said, ‘They’re looking for a director at Marvel for this movie and your name came up. Would you be interested?’ And I thought, ‘I wonder if I could still do it.’ They’re really demanding, those types of pictures, and I felt, ‘Well, that’s reason enough.’”

Sam Raimi for Collider

Hiring Raimi to replace Derrickson was well-received by fans. Especially considering that we’ll see Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange one more time before his own sequel, in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, where we’ll also see Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus from Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2”. We’d say now that’s one intentional coincidence.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” will be released on March 25, 2022. Before that, we’ll see the titular character in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” on December 17, 2021.

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Lukas Abramovich is a freelance writer and photo and video editor based in Croatia. He's also a web designer and holds a Master’s degree in general Computer Science from the Faculty of Informatics based in Pula, Croatia. Since 2018, Lukas has worked on several portals writing about movies, TV shows, and video games. He's currently writing articles for two of them: Fiction Horizon and Comic Basics. He also has a YouTube channel in his native language, and the content there is mostly reviewing popular movies and TV shows. Lukas also has an Instagram page where he once used to post fan-made posters he made, which is something he would like to continue working on, as photo and video editing are also some of his passions. Lukas is a big movie lover who is okay with watching any kind of movie. His favorite movie is Michael Curtiz's Casablanca, but he's a loyal follower of Marvel and DC movies, as well as several other blockbuster franchises he's been following for years; Star Wars, Fast & Furious, Mission: Impossible, and James Cameron's Avatar are only some of them. His favorite director is Christopher Nolan, with Quentin Tarantino and Denis Villeneuve as honorable mentions. Lukas is also a big fan of four fantasy multimedia franchises; The Wizarding World, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Witcher, and The Lord of the Rings. He calls them "the four rulers of the fantasy genre." He loves to write about anything spawned from those franchises (books, games, movies...), as well as anything branded with the Marvel or DC logo. Video games and their adaptations are also something he follows faithfully since he's a big fan of story-driven single-player games like Assassin's Creed, The Last of Us, Uncharted, etc. His favorite video game ever is Red Dead Redemption 2.