In addition to picking up a new director, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has found a new writer.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+'s Loki showrunner Michael Waldron will pen the script for the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel. He will take over from Jade Bartlett, the previous writer. Production on the film is slated to kick off in May.
Aside from Loki, Waldron is producing the Starz series Heels starring Arrow's Stephen Amell. He also contributed to Rick & Morty Season 4 and Community.
Waldron isn't the only newcomer boarding Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Sam Raimi, the director of Sony's original Spider-Man trilogy, is reportedly in talks to replace original helmer Scott Derrickson. Between his history with Spider-Man and his proclivity for horror, Raimi makes a lot of sense for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which will lean into the "scary" side of the character.
"I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s a horror film, but... it’ll be a big Marvel Cinematic Universe film with scary sequences in it," Feige teased in December. "I mean, there are horrifying sequences in [Raiders of the Lost Ark] that I, as a little kid, would [cover my eyes] when their faces melted. Or Temple of Doom, of course, or Gremlins, or Poltergeist. These are the movies that invented the PG-13 rating, by the way. They were PG and then they were like, ‘We need another [rating].’ But that’s fun. It’s fun to be scared in that way, and not a horrific, torturous way, but a way that is legitimately scary... but scary in the service of an exhilarating emotion."
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen. The film hits theaters May 7, 2021.