Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness showed Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch in a never-before depicted manner. As the primary antagonist of the sequel, Wanda was a force not to be reckoned with. She single-handedly kept Doctor Strange on her toes and her fight with Illuminati was something we never saw before.
However, it turns out that Elizabeth Olsen was not supposed to be the villain at all. In the original idea for the sequel, Wanda was actually supposed to fight alongside Doctor Stephen Strange as an ally. This would’ve turned out to be completely different than what the movie ended up as. So, if Wanda wasn’t the initial choice as a villain, how would the movie have turned out? A concept art has the answer to that!
Doctor Strange’s Variants
Director Scott Derrickson was initially meant to be the director of Multiverse of Madness along with C. Robert Cargill working as the writer. However, the project was then handed over to Sam Raimi and Michael Waldron took over the role of the head writer. Under Derrickson, the movie didn’t have Wanda as the antagonist of the movie. Instead, the two worked together to defeat a different villain, Nightmare.
Artist Ryan De Silva shared the artwork for Derrickson’s version of the sequel. In one of the artworks shared by De Silva, Strange is seen looking at a dead variant of himself and behind him, Wanda can be seen being on the lookout for dangers. This clearly states that Wanda and Strange were a team in the original idea of the film.
Another concept art De Silva showed Strange standing in the middle of a desert surrounded by thousands of dead variants of himself. The art suggests that his particular scene would have happened in the Incursion Universe. Other artworks showed ancient illustrations in the Dream Codex, a look at Nightmare, the book of Vishanti, and so on. Below are some photos of De Silva’s concept art.
It looks like the movie was going in a completely different direction than what happened under Raimi’s lead. Do you think this would have been the way to go for the sequel to touch the billion-dollar mark at the box office?
The Original Villain – Nightmare
Apart from De Silva’s concept art, set designs revealed by Oliver Carroll showed Nightmare in at least one scene, facing off against Strange. As seen in the Marvel comics, Nightmare is one of the Fear Lords and he has cosmic power. The villain can never be truly defeated because as long as people have dreams, Nightmare will exist.
While Nightmare would have fit right into the sequel, it sadly didn’t happen. However, it doesn’t mean that there is the guy wouldn’t return in the future endeavors of Doctor Strange. The possibilities are quite high especially since in the sequel’s post-credit scene, Clea told Strange that he had caused an “incursion,” asking him to accompany her to the dark dimension, to fix what he had caused.
Only time will tell if Nightmare truly is coming to have a face-off against Doctor Strange and whether Wanda will be an ally in the fight or not.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is available to stream on Disney+.
Source: Ryan De Silva
