Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Originally Had A Much Longer Runtime

gamerant.com:

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had a lot of story to pack into its 126-minute runtime, a runtime that is definitely on the shorter side when looking at recent MCU films. But that runtime was originally much longer, according to director Sam Raimi.

Following the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange 2 follows Benedict Cumberbatch's sorcerer hero through the alternate realities of the multiverse as he tries to protect teenager America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) from those looking to steal her dimension-hopping powers. The sequel's runtime makes it the shortest MCU flick since 2019's Captain Marvel, which clocked in at 124 minutes.

Doctor Strange 2 Works Better As A Collection Of Moments Rather Than A Cohesive Story

If the story is told right, a runtime shouldn't determine how great a film is, but since the Doctor Strange sequel underwent many significant reshoots, it's difficult not to dwell on what the original cut looked like, especially when the flick became one of most hyped films to date in the MCU. So when speaking with Collider, Raimi was of course asked about that original cut and how much footage was taken out. «It was probably like two hours and 40 minutes, and it slowly came down, even though we did the reshoots,» the Evil Dead and Spider-Man filmmaker recalled. «We took out material even though the reshoots went in. So, it slowly got down to about two hours and five minutes is the total.»

While many fans could have easily experienced another 30 minutes or so of Raimi's unique vision, Doctor Strange 2 no doubt packed plenty of surprises. These surprises included cameos that will surely be discussed for a while, especially considering how those particular characters met a certain fate. That being