Doctor Strange 2 Director Reveals SPOILER’s Deleted Death Scene

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, now streaming on Disney+. In the opening minutes of Doctor Strange 2, Earth-617’s Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) dies defending multiverse-traveling teen America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) from an interdimensional demon. On the film’s audio commentary included on the digital release, director Sam Raimi revealed the gory details of a rumored alternate opening scene set in the aftermath of WandaVision. In the deleted scene, the sorcerer hunter Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) confronts Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), the former Avenger turned Scarlet Witch. 

As told by Raimi, the Scarlet Witch “killed [Mordo] and cut his head off … [and] presented it to Strange in a later scene.” 

The Mordo of Earth-616 — who last appeared in 2016’s Doctor Strange — ultimately does not appear in Doctor Strange 2, and Mordo’s beheading is not among the deleted scenes included on the home release. Ejiofor portrays the Sorcerer Supreme Mordo of Earth-838, the only member of that universe’s Illuminati not to die at the hands of a dreamwalking Scarlet Witch.

On Earth-838, the Scarlet Witch slaughters Mordo’s teammates: Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell), Black Bolt (Anson Mount) of the Inhumans, Captain Marvel (Lashana Lynch), Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) of the X-Men, and Reed Richards (John Krasinski) of the Fantastic Four.  

After Olsen revealed the Scarlet Witch was “supposed to kill more” in the final cut of Doctor Strange 2, screenwriter Michael Waldron told Variety, “Well, there were more people. Maybe not necessarily in that [Illuminati] sequence. But I talked about her as kind of a [Terminator] T-1000 in that assault on Kamar-Taj. She’s unstoppable.”

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Directed by Sam Raimi, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/the Scarlet Witch, Benedict Wong as Sorcerer Supreme Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, and Charlize Theron as Clea. Watch now on Disney+.

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