Doctor Strange 2 Trailer Unleashes a Multiverse of Madness With Scarlet Witch

The doctor is in: watch the first trailer for Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. After the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) tampers with the stability of space-time when he casts a spell making the world forget an unmasked Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) secret identity, the Multiverse is unleashed. In the aftermath of Marvel Studios series WandaVision and Loki, the Master of the Mystic Arts and Wong (Benedict Wong) — the new Sorcerer Supreme — join forces with the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) to defeat what the sorcerer hunter Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) calls the greatest threat to their universe: Stephen Strange.

Released as a post-credits surprise trailing Spider-Man: No Way Home, the official trailer reveals the return of Karl Mordo, missing since 2016’s Doctor Strange. “Your desecration of reality will not go unpunished,” warns the sorcerer’s mentor-turned-enemy before Strange falls through a star-shaped portal. “I never meant for any of this to happen.” 

Reuniting with Wanda Maximoff for the first time since Avengers: Endgame, Strange says he hasn’t found her to talk about Westview — the New Jersey suburb bewitched by the Scarlet Witch’s hex in WandaVision. “We need your help. What do you know about the Multiverse?”

Also revealing the new red-and-black costume of Defender Doctor Strange, the trailer shows Strange fending off inter-dimensional monster Gargantos as he protects multiversal traveler America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). Ending the trailer is the apparent threat to the Marvel Cinematic Universe: the dark Doctor Strange Supreme (Cumberbatch), who first endangers the Multiverse when he’s hellbent on resurrecting Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) in Marvel animated series What If…? 

The sequel, scripted by Loki head writer Michael Waldron and directed by Spider-Man trilogy filmmaker Sam Raimi, goes in a “slightly scarier direction” than Scott Derrickson’s 2016 origin story. 

“[Going into the horror world is] obviously something that Scott Derrickson, the director of the first movie, does so well…obviously that influence, you feel it in the first one,” Waldron said previously of the next MCU movie. “Even though it’s not a horror movie, there is like this sort of spookiness throughout it. It’s part of what makes that movie work so well.”

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Xochitl Gomez, and Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch, Stephen Strange returns when Doctor Strange of the Multiverse of Madness opens in theaters on May 6, 2022.