A few days ago, some reports said that the first Doctor Strange 2 trailer will drop as a surprise post-credits scene at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. That made a lot of sense, considering that Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a key character in the Spider-Man movie. Now that No Way Home has started playing in theaters in certain markets, we’ve witnessed a massive number of leaks that addressed several of the Spider-Man rumors we saw all year long. But they also detailed the film’s post-credits scenes, including a Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer surprise.
The Doctor Strange 2 trailer has now leaked in full after an audio version hit the web earlier this week. Mind you, some Multiverse of Madness spoilers might follow below. But we won’t reveal any No Way Home plot spoilers in what follows, other than what the film’s trailers showed us.
Why Multiverse of Madness is so exciting
One of the rumors that Sony and Marvel confirmed with the first No Way Home trailer was that the third standalone Spider-Man adventure in the MCU is a multiverse story. It was Doctor Strange who addressed the multiverse in the clip.
The multiverse explains the arrivals of the Spider-Man villains from the non-MCU movies. And it fits well with the overall multiverse tone of Phase 4. Loki and What If…? delivered the first meaningful multiverse stories of this phase of MCU projects.
But we had no idea in summer 2019 that these three Marvel attractions would advance the multiverse theme. Back then, the only confirmed multiverse movie was Doctor Strange 2, thanks to the inclusion of “Multiverse of Madness” in the title.
The film’s name instantly made it one of the most exciting titles in Phase 4. We didn’t even need a Doctor Strange 2 trailer or plot leaks to realize that.
That’s because the multiverse gives Marvel freedom to do anything it pleases with the characters and stories. We got a taste of that in animated form earlier this year with What If…?. And let’s remember that the multiverse action started in Avengers: Endgame.
More interestingly, the multiverse opens the door to using characters from other Marvel franchises that were never part of the MCU. The multiverse lets Marvel connect the MCU to Fox’s Marvel stories, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU), and the Netflix Marvel shows without worrying about continuity issues. All these events happen in different timelines, so anything is fair game.
The Doctor Strange 2 trailer leak
Why is all that speculation necessary for understanding the Doctor Strange 2 trailer? You know how we always tell you that Marvel trailers are cut in ways that intentionally deceive the audience? Well, the multiverse angle makes it even easier for Marvel to make you see things that aren’t there in the Doctor Strange 2 trailer.
You’ll go into it recognizing several familiar characters, and you might think what they say and do happens in the primary MCU reality. But that’s not always going to be the case. There is at least one instance where the action probably doesn’t take place in the main MCU reality, and you’ll understand it even better if you’ve seen What If…? season 1.
That’s because Doctor Strange 2 trailer 1 might make it seem like Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch) is the main villain of the story. Rumors said this evil version of strange will appear in Multiverse of Madness, and it’s great to see the live-action version of the villain in the flesh.
Also, the giant one-eyed octopus in the middle of the city is probably not the biggest villain either. We knew that Gargantos was coming thanks to that Lego set leak from a few days ago.
Is the main villain shown in the leaked Doctor Strange 2 trailer? Probably, but we won’t get into any of the Doctor Strange 2 plot rumors right now. Suffice it to say that all the main MCU cast members you expect to see in the sequel are included in this trailer. Aside from Cumberbatch, we have Wong (Benedict Wong), Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), and America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) in the clip below.
The official teaser trailer is coming soon
Beware that Marvel might try to pull the leaked Doctor Strange 2 trailer from YouTube in the coming days. That’s because it’s still trying to preserve the post-credits surprise for No Way Home‘s opening weekend. But Marvel will probably drop the full teaser trailer online very soon.
