Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Director Explains Steve Ditko’s Influence on the Film

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, like all Marvel Cinematic Universe films, is one that comes carrying the impact of many influences. After all, the MCU pulls from nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe, but when it comes to the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel there’s one specific influence that filmmaker Sam Raimi says left a “tremendous impression” on him and, in turn, the film: that of Doctor Strange co-creator Steve Ditko. Raimi told /Film that Ditko’s influence was so great that there’s even a portion of the film based on “the Ditko-verse”.

“Tremendous impression,” Raimi said of the impression early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comics had on him. “I’d never seen anything like his illustrations for those fantastic worlds, so much scale and scope was put into those illustrations. Sometimes you’d open up a two-page Ditko landscape piece and it was incredible. In fact, if you saw the first 20 minutes of our movie, that universe where the movie starts is based on what we call the Ditko-verse.”

Ditko, along with Lee, created Doctor Strange who first appeared in Strange Tales #110 in July 1963. He further created a number of characters key to Doctor Strange stories, including Dormammu, Clea, Nightmare, Wong, the Ancient One, and Karl Mordo but more than that, Ditko’s art in Strange Tales had distinctive, surrealistic quality that’s full of detail. It’s that quality to the art that makes Raimi’s comment about its influence over Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness even more exciting.

However, when it comes to influence over not just Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but the MCU in general, it’s not just Ditko or any comic creator that deserves some credit. Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man was a major game-changer in terms of superhero movies and arguably set the stage for the success of the MCU later on, though Raimi says that producers Avi Arad and Kevin Feige also deserve credit.

“I don’t think about it like that, because the bigger picture is Avi Arad was really trying to get Marvel Studios going, Kevin Feige was his assistant at that time, and he was heading Marvel Studios. He was the producer behind Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man. He was trying to get the Marvel Universe, Marvel Studios going, and he did a wonderful job. He even worked on Iron Man and others. And then Kevin naturally took over as his assistant. I was fortunate to be able to direct the Spider-Man movies.”

“But it really was a lot of people,” Raimi continued. “It was the people at Sony Pictures — Amy Pascal and John Kelly were the executives there that went to the trouble of clearing the Spider-Man rights to be made into a movie. There was a lot of people. I think it was less about the individuals than it was just time finally for Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and Marvel’s great cast of characters to break onto the big screen. I think it’s about that generation of readers, who had finally grown up to be the age of executives and filmmakers, and they knew what the best stories out there were — that they were Marvel comics.”

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens in theaters on Friday, May 6th.