As 2021 comes to an end, it’s safe to say Marvel Studios dominated the year’s content. MCU fans were treated to five Disney+ shows and four feature films, and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down. The next movie on the studio’s line-up is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is expected to be released in May. Based on the trailer, it looks like the hero will be dealing with the aftermath of his spell-gone-wrong in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Of course, the new Spidey flick wasn’t the first Marvel project of 2021 to focus on the multiverse. Loki also saw its titular character learning the harsh realities of other universes and what happens when someone creates a “nexus event.” Since Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home both focused on the multiverse, No Way Home writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers recently spoke with The Wrap about whether or not the two stories connect.
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“When we started breaking the story and even started writing the script, we followed Doctor Strange 2 in the timeline,” McKenna explained. “So then during pre-production, things got pushed and changed. We were supposed to start shooting in July of 2020 and it became November of 2020, our release date got pushed from July 2021 to December 2021 – there were a lot of things flipping around.”
“Originally we were writing this where Strange was gonna be involved but it was after the events of Doctor Strange 2, and so where is he where is his head, and so that’s something that we were kicking around,” McKenna continues. “And then now it seems to be more of like, ‘Oh this actually gets him interested in pursuing the multiverse as a concept.’”
Somers added, “We were already down this road when that Loki finale happened,” acknowledging that the events of the Loki finale weren’t planned to coincide with the events of No Way Home, but it ended up working out for them. “We all felt like, this really helps. This is great because it shows that there is trouble in the multiverse.”
“Whether certain things that were happening in Loki line up in terms of the timeline exploding and is that the same time that Doctor Strange is casting the spell, I don’t know,” McKenna admitted. “There is, I’m sure, the Marvel talking points to that. But we were aware of a lot of the different things that were going on, and could we draw on those, how it would be affected by this thing, but ultimately we had our own giant story bear to wrestle with.”
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters, and the first season of Loki is streaming in Disney+. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is scheduled to hit theaters on May 6th, 2022.
