Sam Raimi has revealed that a Stephen Strange-related character was to end up beheaded in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
SPOILERS – Warning, the article below reveals potential spoilers. If you do not wish to know the content, please do not read what follows.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a character known to Marvel fans and present in the first part of Doctor Strange’s solo adventures almost lost his mind!
This dramatic moment was supposed to appear at the start of the film, and was about Mordo, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor from the first Doctor Strange, as director Sam Raimi reveals in the film’s audio commentary:
[La Sorcière rouge] kill [Mordo] and cut off her head… She introduced her to Strange in a scene located a little later.
This scene was cut during editing, probably because of its violence. Recall that Mordo appears in an alternative version to that of the first Doctor Strange (Earth 616). It is indeed the Mordo of Earth 838, which is part of the Illuminati group, quickly destroyed by Wanda Maximoff.
This isn’t the first time a character has had to be beheaded in the MCU, as the Russo Brothers envisioned a similar scene in Avengers: Endgame.
…Even more people, and not necessarily within the sequence [des Illuminatis]. I was referring to her as some kind of [Terminator] T-1000. When she attacks Kamar-Taj, she is unstoppable.
The Illuminati are indeed slaughtered, and the film surprised fans with how quickly it introduced characters to make them disappear in the process, Waldron confirmed that this killing was present from the start of the project:
“It was there from my first version of the script. It was for me the aspect of “madness” [folie, NdlR] [du titre]. You introduce a superheroic team making viewers feel that [les personnages] are finally safe, and then the Scarlet Witch guts them. It was a great way to pin people down in their seats. And hopefully, they spend the rest of the movie terrified of Wanda and what she’s capable of.”
Here’s what to catch up on before discovering Doctor Stange 2: