Michael Waldron got his start writing and producing shows like Community, Good Game, and Rick and Morty, but his career is about to take off in a whole new way. Waldron wrote the MCU series Loki, which hits Disney+ next week, and was also hired to rewrite next year’s MCU blockbuster Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Waldron talked about what it was like to come aboard the Doctor Strange sequel and start from scratch with director Sam Raimi after the film’s original director, Scott Derrickson, and writer, C. Robert Cargill, left due to creative differences with the studio and Raimi was brought on board.
Waldron said of the project:
“I knew I wanted to stay in the family. I felt like Loki was in a great place and I was eager for what the next challenge would be.” He remembered thinking, “How do we just make a movie in two months?” He added, “But COVID quickly descended upon us. We’re not shooting now until November. So I got to spend my 2020 on Zooms with Sam Raimi. Not too bad.”
He went on to talk about Doctor Stephen Strange, saying:
“He’s Indiana Jones in a cloak to me. He’s a hero who can take a punch. That’s what made those Harrison Ford heroes so great. Those guys get their asses kicked. Look at Stephen Strange in the first movie. He’s really getting beat up but he’s very capable and everything. I can tell you that it’s a ride…very Sam Raimi. The film is incredibly visually thrilling. John Mathieson, our D.P., who shot Gladiator and Logan—I think the look of it is going to be unlike anything you’ve seen in the MCU before.”
I think this movie is in good hands. I am really excited for everything I have seen headed our way in the fourth phase of the MCU, and I can’t wait to see the involvement of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in the storyline. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set to hit theaters in 2022.