The release of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is fast approaching, and people are already wondering whether or not it’s going to be available on Disney+, which is Marvel Studios’ partner streaming service provider. Of course, this is a legitimate question because of the fact that people have become so used to watching their shows and movies on streaming services during the pandemic. In that regard, will Doctor Strange 2 be on Disney+?
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will indeed be on Disney+, but it won’t be streaming at the same time as the theatrical release window of the movie. There are yet to be any announcements regarding how long Doctor Strange 2 will stay in theaters or when it will be available for streaming.
It is worth noting that several Marvel Studios movies have seen shorter theatrical release windows since 2021, considering that the effects of the pandemic were factored in. That said, we did see Spider-Man: No Way Home in theaters longer than any other MCU movie since the pandemic began, and the same could happen with Doctor Strange 2 because of how big of a movie this is for the MCU.
Is Doctor Strange 2 Going To Be On Disney+?
The latest movie in the MCU’s slate is Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which is set to release in theaters in the first week of May (May 6th in the US). While this movie is set to see a theatrical release soon and is going to be the latest movie to make the entire MCU interesting, there are still people who are looking forward to its release on a streaming service.
While the world may be steadily returning to normal ever since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there are still some people who are hesitant to watch movies in theaters. Of course, most people have become used to watching their movies at home because of the rise of the streaming market in the past few years. In that regard, people may be wondering if Doctor Strange is going to be on Disney+.
As you already know, Disney+ is Marvel Studios’ partner streaming channel, considering that the MCU is a property of Disney. Of course, the theatrical version of Doctor Strange is a property licensed under Disney, which owns Marvel
This isn’t the same case with Spider-Man: No Way Home, which isn’t entirely owned by Disney because Sony still retains the rights to the movie. As such, you can expect Disney+ to have sole ownership over the streaming rights of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. That means that, yes, Doctor Strange 2 is indeed going to be on Disney+.
Will Doctor Strange 2 Have Simultaneous Streaming On Disney+?
As mentioned, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will indeed be on Disney+. But the thing that people should know is that it won’t be streaming on Disney+ during the theatrical release window. In short, Doctor Strange 2 will not have simultaneous streaming on Disney+.
It wasn’t uncommon for big companies to release their movies in theaters and on streaming services simultaneously because of the fact that there were actually movies that got that treatment during the pandemic. For instance, Black Widow was released in theaters and in Disney+ simultaneously in 2021. And Columbia Pictures gave the same treatment to their movies in 2021 by allowing them to be in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time.
Nevertheless, since the latter portion of 2021, Disney has opted to forego the simultaneous release due to the fact that vaccination rates were increasing. The first MCU movie to have a theater-only release ever since the pandemic began was Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Meanwhile, Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home followed when they had theater-only releases.
In that regard, there is no doubt that Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will get the same treatment as well and will receive a theater-only release, especially now that the economy and the theaters are more open than they were back in the latter portion of 2021. This means that if you want to catch Doctor Strange 2 in the soonest possible instance, the only way for you to do so is to book your tickets.
Of course, it will arrive on Disney+ after the theatrical release window. That was what happened with both Shang-Chi and Eternals, which made their way to the streaming service provider’s library soon after their respective release windows. And this is what we are going to talk about next in relation to Doctor Strange 2.
When Will Doctor Strange 2 Be On Disney+?
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will indeed be on Disney+. However, there is no word regarding when it will get its Disney+ release or how long it will stay in theaters, considering that Disney wants to stay flexible in relation to its movies’ theatrical release windows. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said this in November 2021:
“We are sticking with our plan of flexibility because we are still unsure about how the marketplace is going to react when family films come back with a theatrical-first window.”
This means that we don’t know how long Doctor Strange 2 will be in theaters because Disney wants to stay flexible. As long as the movie is still in theaters, it won’t make its way to Disney+. Still, we can make an assumption regarding when it will see a Disney+ release.
Shang-Chi stayed in theaters for 45 days before making its way to Disney+. Meanwhile, Eternals stayed in theaters for 68 days. On the other hand, Spider-Man: No Way Home, due to its massive success, only saw a digital release about three months after its theatrical release.
In that sense, we can probably make the assumption that Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will stay in theaters somewhere between 45 to 90 days, depending on how well it performs at the box office. Of course, Doctor Strange 2 is set to become one of the biggest movies in the MCU’s Phase Four, and that means that people are hyped about this movie and how it will affect the MCU as a whole heading into the future.
Spider-Man: No Way Home was already massively successful not only because it featured all three versions of Spider-Man but also because of how it opened up the concept of the multiverse in the MCU. Considering that Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is going to truly open the multiverse concept up, there is no telling how big of an impact it will have on the MCU moving forward. This means that people will want to catch the movie in theaters more than they wanted to watch Shang-Chi or the Eternals.
That means that we are leaning towards the possibility of Doctor Strange 2 staying in theaters for 90 days. As such, Doctor Strange 2 probably won’t make its way to Disney+ until the early half of August 2022. But we believe that Disney is still going to base its decision on the movie’s box office performance in relation to how long it will stay in theaters.
