Sam Raimi on His Approach To Directing DOCTOR STRANGE 2, Building on Marvel's Legacy, and Incorporating His Style
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has screened, and all I’ll say for now is WOW! Sam Raimi did an incredible job bringing this epic story to life, and in a recent interview with /Film, the filmmaker opened up about his approach to directing the movie for Marvel Studios and how he was focused on making a Marvel movie first and how his signature style just bled into that.
"[What you see] was really the look we were after. Everything else really came out of the storylines from the previous Marvel movies, as far as setting us up to where our movie would go. It wasn't about 'Hey, let's bring in a favorite character' because we had so many characters that we had to service that there really was no room for anything else except to recognize what they needed and do them justice."
Raimi went on to compare his process of working on the movie with Marvel to how an architect would work with an outside firm, and how he had to exercise some different creative muscles:
"It was a really exciting thing for me to do because usually ... I'm like if I was an architect, I would design unique buildings and try and scare them with this one and thrill them with that one. But this job [...], it's more like this is an existing series with established characters and a fan base. And the job is to complete mile 16 of a bridge that had been under construction for 15 years. And it takes a different set of skills to do that. It's got to work with what went before. It's got to lead into what's coming. It's got to be handled to hold the same audience expectations that those other films did. It's got a great bunch of challenges that are unique to this particular job and it was great to exercise those muscles."
Don’t worry, though! While he did put Marvel's vision for the story first in the development of this movie, his signature filmmaking style is still there! It bled into the work he did. The plan was never to make a Sam Raimi film, it was to make a Marvel film. He explained:
"No, that was never the plan. It was always to do justice to that which existed and to make a great experience moving forward and to set up future films. I think just any time a director reads a book or reads the screenplay and tells the crew what the part of it is, that is their style imprint. Just looking at it through the lens of your own mind's eye, imparts your style to a piece and your sense of pace about [how] the scene should run and focusing on what's important and what's dramatic — just those choices. Sticking with the Marvel universe, that really was how I approached it."
You’ll be able to see Sam Raimi’s incredible Marvel film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, when it hits theaters this weekend! May 6th, 2022!