Original Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness screenwriter Jade Halley Bartlett shared his experience working on an early draft of the MCU sequel with original director Scott Derrickson.
“I was on the project for about a year. I was the first writer in on Doctor Strange 2, and it was really fun,” Bartlett said to ComicBook.com in an interview promoting her directorial debut, Haley’s Girl.
“There are two versions. There’s the Raimi, Michael Waldron version, which is exquisite, and I love both of them. Then, I was with Scott Derrickson. We developed it for about a year in the room with Kevin [Feige] and Eric [Hauserman Carroll] and Lou [D’Esposito] and Richie [Palmer]. It was Scott and it was really exciting and it was really fun. I still cannot believe I got that job. I don’t know how I got that job. I did get the job. We had a whole draft, and then of course the pandemic happened, which was a nightmare.”
Derrickson would drop out of the Doctor Strange sequel due to creative differences with Marvel Studios. Spider-Man’s Sam Raimi took charge of the project to add his trademark horror elements. The director change led to Bartlett’s exit and Loki showrunner Michael Waldron penning a new story that continued the relentless quest of WandaVision‘s Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) to find her children within the multiverse. Despite the change in creative director, Bartlett reflects on her time working with Marvel fondly.
“I am not allowed to say anything about the draft. I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you anything, but I can tell you that working with them, everybody there really loves their job,” Bartlett continued. “They’re so kind and they’re very generous. It was like getting to work with scholars, I guess, scholars of these comic books. So that was really fun. I think I have this giant binder of, I think, every Doctor Strange ever, which is pretty amazing, and it’s in color. They printed it in color, so that was really exciting.”
Scott Derrickson on his exit from Doctor Strange 2
Multiverse of Madness was released in 2022 to mixed reviews and grossed over $955 million worldwide. A year after its release, Derrickson spoke about his exit from the MCU sequel to The Discourse podcast.
“All I can say is that what we said publicly is exactly the truth,” Derrickson said. “We had real creative differences. You know, the movie I wanted to make and how I wanted to make it was different than — it was just increasingly obvious that we were pulling against each other. And that’s how you make a really bad movie, I think. When the producer or the studio and the filmmaker are making different movies, you end up with a monstrosity and, you know, that’s why I had to bounce.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now streaming on Disney+.
