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Marvel Studios is now several projects deep into Phase Four, which are all of its interconnected theatrical releases and TV series released from 2021 through to 2023.

And not unlike Phase Three — where audiences saw Marvel finally bring together all of its Avengers and unify the storylines of more than a dozen different franchises first established in the late 2000s — many of the projects in Phase Four will also interweave different plots and bring together characters from separate franchises.

This includes the upcoming film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and fans are already debating what will happen when two iconic figures meet.

‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ will be a horror-inspired Marvel movie

News about Marvel working on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness first began to leak to the press in 2016, but the film wasn’t officially announced until 2019. 

“A sequel to Doctor Strange was announced as expected on Saturday at Marvel’s Comic-Con panel — what we didn’t see coming was the tone,” reported Variety at the time. “[The director] said the film,…will mine the original comics and play up ‘the gothic, the horror'” and that “it will lead Benedict Cumberbatch to dark and damaging places, though he will have company in Elizabeth Olsen, who will reprise her role as Scarlet Witch.”

Besides Cumberbatch and Olsen as the titular Dr. Strange and Wanda Maximoff (i.e. Scarlet Witch), the movie will also feature Wong (played by British actor Benedict Wong), Strange’s mentor; Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), a romantic interest of Dr. Strange; Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Dr. Strange’s nemesis and an ex-Master of the Mystic Arts; and America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), the superhero known as Miss America in the comics.

The 2022 film’s timeline takes place shortly after the debut season of ‘WandaVision’

Elizabeth Olsen
Elizabeth Olsen | Matt Winkelmeyer/2021 MTV Movie and TV Awards/Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS

In the first Doctor Strange, fans see the origin story of the superhero as he goes from being a know-it-all medical doctor to an accidental sorcerer. From there, Marvel pulled Dr. Strange into various other films, including 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.

In the latter film, Dr. Strange died at the hands of Thanos, only to be resurrected and helping to lead the Avengers to victory.

It appears that Dr. Strange’s journey is not yet complete.

“Plot details are vague, but the title holds a lot of meaning,” explains Entertainment Weekly. “First of all, multiverse, as in the Marvel Comics multiverse of multiple realities. Then there’s the fact that the movie will act as a direct follow-up to the events chronicled in the Disney+ series WandaVision.”

The publication also points out that Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, has even noted that this film will tie into Spider-Man 3.

Despite Marvel being tight-lipped about the plot of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, fans can’t stop brainstorming all the potential ways that Wanda Maximoff will interact with Dr. Strange.

Fans think Dr. Strange and Wanda Maximoff will fight each other

“Do you guys think Wanda will team up with Strange or be someone Strange has to fight in Multiverse of Madness?,” asked Redditor ZGT-17 on the social media platform Reddit.

“I think their first scene together will be them fighting one another, and then they’ll work together for the rest of the film,” replied user cbekel3618. “I don’t think Wanda’s going to be an antagonist in [Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness].”

Another user agreed and wrote: “I think they are going to have a brief fight then ultimately team up together.”

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is currently scheduled to come out in theaters in March 2022.

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