While his work on the Spider-Man franchise was indeed commendable because of the perfect balance of violence, action, and emotions that he brought to the table, Sam Raimi took it a bit too far when it came down to Doctor Strange 2. In fact, the violence was so elaborate that the final cut of the movie didn’t include more than just a few bits of Elizabeth Olsen’s fearsome Scarlet Witch.
Though the released final cut of the movie in itself could arguably be called the most violent piece released by the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date, the cut scenes tend to differ. This is because one of these barbaric scenes even had Olsen’s character almost modeled to the same level of craziness as Jack Gleeson’s character in Game of Thrones, Joffrey Baratheon!
Sam Raimi Almost Made Scarlet Witch Too Violent in Doctor Strange 2
While the cut released itself presents some gruelingly violent scenes holding Elizabeth Olsen‘s Wanda Maximoff, the original cut took it at least ten steps further. If anything, the original bits of what the filmmaker had intended to present the character like even had some certain scenes that could have landed it in the R-rated category for its gory.
For instance, as the movie’s fight coordinator, Liang Yang, took to his respective Instagram handle (@liangstunts) to share, Wanda was supposed to do more than just kick butt. This included her going around twisting necks, bending bones, and using Doctor Strange’s beheaded soldiers to kill other soldiers during the battle of Kamar-Taj.
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But even that’s not all, for Sam Raimi planned something even more critically gory for Wanda that could have made it seem like she was actually modeled on Game of Thrones‘ Joffrey Baratheon. This scene was the one where Olsen’s Scarlet Witch had to go ahead and snap Earth-616 Mordo’s head off and present it to Strange.
As Raimi shared in the film’s audio commentary about Earth-616’s Mordo (via Looper):
He had a limp, and he was coming after the Scarlet Witch to take her power because he knew she was dark and terribly corrupted by the Darkhold. She killed him and cut off his head and presented it to Strange in a later scene.
As dark as this scene would have been, had included, it would have also ostensibly established her as a modeled version of Joffrey.
To jog your memory a bit, Jack Gleeson‘s character himself says in the series about wanting to do something similar since “Robb Stark is dead.” He says:
Robb Stark is dead. And his b***h mother. Write back to Lord Frey, thank him for his service, and command him to send Robb Stark’s head. I’m going to serve it to Sansa at my wedding feast.
All of this being said, the connection can actually be easily established between the two and their atrocious thoughts and acts toward others. However, this scene of Wanda treating Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s character so viciously was eventually removed from the film despite being “great writing” because “it slowed the beginning down too much,” as Raimi explained.
But while Mordo was one character to face the wrath of Wanda, he wasn’t the only one: Olsen’s character was supposed to do the Wasp dirty as well.
Elizabeth Olsen Was Also Supposed to Do the Wasp Dirty
One of the other cut scenes of the movie was supposed to include the Wasp as a part of the Illuminati as well. In this scene, the tiny superhero was intended to make use of her shrunkenness to get Wanda under control. However, instead of helping, this brutally backfires for the miniature character.
As writer Michael Waldron explained in the film’s audio commentary:
The Wasp shrunk down and flew at Wanda. She just clapped her hands and smushed the Wasp.
Needless to say, such violently gritty scenes would have inevitably made the movie a lot more darker than what it already was, and would have definitely led to it scoring an R-rating. But even then, it could have added that required blunt force to the movie to make it a true masterpiece.
You can watch Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on Disney+.
