Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman Reflect on How Marvel Universe Has ‘Exploded’ Since ‘Spider-Man’

LOS ANGELES -- Doctor Strange and his multiverse got to linger a little longer atop the weekend box office as Tom Cruise and “Top Gun” wait in the wings.Marvel's “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was the top-earning film of the weekend for the third straight week, bringing in $31.6 million in 4,534 North American theaters, according to studio estimates released Sunday.“Downtown Abbey: A New Era” made a strong opening showing for Focus Features with $16 million from 3,820 theaters, but there was no real blockbuster competition for “Doctor Strange."That will change with the long awaited, and long delayed, release of “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel that arrives next week on Memorial Day weekend, 36 years after the original smash hit and cultural landmark.It flies in amid sky-high hype.Cruise had the film festival in Cannes, France, abuzz on Wednesday with a whirlwind appearance for the film's European premiere that included a fly over of French fighter jets and an honorary Palme d’Or award.But while the world waits, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” crossed the $800 million mark in global grosses, surpassing “The Batman” to become the top-grossing film of the year.Released by the Walt Disney Co. and directed by Sam Raimi, “ Doctor Strange 2 ” benefitted from being the first Marvel movie to follow “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” in which Benedict Cumberbatch’s sorcerer played a pivotal role.It also builds upon the popular Disney+ series “Wandavision” and contains a number of cameos that fans didn’t want to be spoiled.Holdover family films “The Bad Guys” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” took the third and fourth spots.

Sam Raimi would be open to directing a new Spider-Man movie, but only if he could get the old gang back together.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticDanny Elfman comes by his “Strange” love naturally. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is the composer’s ninth film with director Sam Raimi and fourth on a Marvel project, but more than that, a kind of controlled insanity has been a part of virtually everything he’s done, going back to Oingo Boingo days, so asking him to make a score both superheroic and super-nuts is not necessarily a tall order.Variety spoke with him a few days after the opening, by which point it was abundantly clear that any worries he had about about the film being too Raimi-esque for the mass audience were unfounded, just like the reservations he’d held about how his twin Coachella performances would go over at that festival last month.

Manori Ravindran International EditorCapstone Global has boarded action-thriller “Boy Kills World,” starring Bill Skarsgård, Michelle Dockery and Jessica Rothe.The Los Angeles-based production and sales outfit is partnering on the pic with Nthibah Pictures, Hammerstone Studios, Sam Raimi’s Raimi Productions and Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment. Sales will be launched in Cannes, with both Capstone and CAA co-representing U.S.

Before director Sam Raimi (“Evil Dead“) was famous for making his “Spider-Man” trilogy as part of the wave of films that helped launch live-action Marvel Comics movies into popular culture alongside 1998’s “Blade” and 2000’s “X-Men,” he decided to make his own original mature superhero film. Raimi made “Darkman” after he couldn’t secure the film rights to “The Shadow,” a dark superhero created for radio in the 1930s who was voiced by the legendary Orson Wells (“Citizen Kane“).

It’s the first week of May, and you know what that means, right? The Marvel Studios machine has pumped out another feature and is ready to take over the world yet again. This time, we get “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” and boy, oh boy, The Playlist Podcast has some thoughts.

then made headlines Tuesday for scaling the tallest building in the City by the Bay. No, Colbert’s crew pulled the curtain back entirely through all the animated glory of a classic Spider-Man cartoon, revealing the culprit to be none other than Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.“Spider-Man, Spider-Man.

NEW YORK -- Relief was just starting to wash over director Sam Raimi the morning after the premiere of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”The film, which opens in theaters Friday, has been a headlong sprint for the 62-year-old, who took over two and a half years ago after Scott Derrickson departed the project over creative differences. Raimi had a script to retool but an unmovable shooting timeline to meet.“Every part of this moviemaking process has been great, but every part of the process went on too long and became a little too intense,” explained Raimi, speaking by Zoom from Los Angeles.

While many are excited to see director Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man“) return to the superhero genre with “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” releasing this week, the film also allows him to play in the realm of horror. It’s been more than a decade since Raimi has really tapped into horror filmmaking in a serious way.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” promises to expand the MCU in a major way: by opening up the multiverse, of course. First teased majorly in last year’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the multiverse paves the way for different iterations of the same character to populate the MCU as we know it, and “Doctor Strange 2” finds Benedict Cumberbatch’s titular sorcerer (along with Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and some other friends) hopping from reality to reality, encountering different versions of themselves as well as new heroes destined to spawn new MCU franchises of their own.The first “Doctor Strange 2” reviews are in ahead of the film’s May 6 release date, and while Marvel movies are usually fairly critic proof, last year’s “Eternals” – which was the first Marvel movie to earn largely negative reviews in years – stumbled at the box office.

brought together all three live-action Peter Parker’s, Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, fans reminisced about each franchise’s most memorable moments from across the multiverse. For Marvel’s original webslinger, it was a full-circle moment after kicking off the character’s cinematic journey nearly 20 years before in Sam Raimi’s .As Peter 2 (Maguire) explains to Peter 1 (Holland) and Peter 3 (Garfield), he and Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) have “made it work” in the years since their relationship status was left up in the air following 2007's.

**Editor’s note: To properly review “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness,” you have to tread into the basic plot, and the basic plot has been kept secret from audiences and withheld from the trailers. Thus, this review will have to get into *some* basic spoilers, so if you want to be totally spoiler-free, we encourage you to read this review after you’ve seen the film.

When you bring Sam Raimi into the Marvel Cinematic Universe you can bet you are going to get something different, and that is definitely the case with his pretty scary take on the latest MCU entry, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Though Raimi is well versed in the Marvel comic book world having directed the first Spider-Man trilogy he is just as well known for many other genres, certainly for his horror filmography including The Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell among a lot more, and here he successfully and entertainingly gets to mix that kind of dark terrifying storytelling with beloved established characters in the MCU.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” has officially concluded its world premiere and the first reactions for the new entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are pouring in online, with film journalists calling the long-awaited sequel everything from a film that “fully goes horror” to “a mixed bag.” One thing almost everyone seems to agree on is that it’s nice to see Sam Raimi back in the director’s chair.Benedict Cumberbatch reprises the title role in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which is helmed by Raimi. The film picks up after the events of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” in which Stephen Strange changed the face of reality by opening up the multiverse.

If you remember, back in the day, filmmaker Sam Raimi was all set to make “Spider-Man 4,” then slated for a May 6, 2011 release. Tobey Maguire and Kristen Dunst would star again, and at least two new characters/actors would join the franchise: Anne Hathaway as the Black Cat/Felicia Hardy, John Malkovich as Vulture/Adrian Toomes.

Spider-Man trilogy has spoken about the possibility of a fourth film starring Tobey Maguire as the titular webslinger.Following Maguire’s introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home, there’s been a renewed interest from fans in continuing the story of Maguire’s version of Spider-Man.Speaking about his interest in revisiting the character, Sam Raimi (who directed 2002’s Spider-Man and the following two sequels) told Rolling Stone he’d be up for it “if there was a great story there.”“My love for the characters hasn’t diminished one iota,” he continued. “It would be the same things that would stop me now that stopped me then: ‘Does Tobey want to do it? Is there an emotional arc for him? Is there a great conflict for this character? And is there a worthy villain that fits into the theme of the piece?’ There’s a lot of questions that would have to be answered.

Wilson Chapman editorNext week, Sam Raimi will be making his long-awaited return to the superhero genre with the Marvel blockbuster “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” The film represents his first time back in the director’s chair after a nine-year hiatus following “Oz the Great and the Powerful” in 2013, as well as his first superhero movie since the end of his beloved “Spider-Man” trilogy in 2007.In a wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone, Raimi discussed stepping back into superhero films, and his memories of the original “Spider-Man” trilogy, which are widely regarded today as a turning point for superhero films. The series, however, ended on a less triumphant note with “Spider-Man 3,” which received mixed reviews.

The journey from Sam Raimi‘s never-made “Spider-Man 4” to Marvel‘s “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” has been an interesting one, as the genre director seemed keen to keep making “Spider-Man” movies despite the poor reception of 2008’s “Spider-Man 3.” Raimi is now giving a little more insight into how things ultimately unraveled and why the headaches of “Spider-Man 3” was a contributing factor.

After giving us his original “Spider-Man” trilogy, it’s exciting for many comic book movie fans that director Sam Raimi‘s finally returning to the world of Marvel Comics Raimi is in the director’s chair for the upcoming “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” allowing him to play the biggest sandbox in modern cinema, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And while that film is starting to bubble with anticipation and is only a few short weeks away, Raimi isn’t closing the door on more Marvel, more specifically, his old Spider-Man character.

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