There were lots of stories about major reshoots during the production of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but Xochitl Gomez, who plays America Chavez in the movie, recently revealed a specific change that were made to Doctor Strange shortly before the release of the most recent entry in the series, that actually made a huge difference to the film’s overall story.
In the opening scene of the film, we see a character called Defender Strange attempting to steal America Chavez’s multiverse-jumping power for himself. Doing so will kill her, but that doesn’t stop him. Before Defender Strange can take America’s power, though, he’s killed by a monster, and America gets sent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In the overall scheme of the film, these scenes are there to show how Doctor Strange has an important lesson to learn in the film: He can’t always be the one to fix things, no matter how much it feels like he should be. Sometimes it’s okay to rely on other people.
Xochitl Gomez recently told /Film that that Defender Strange scene was totally different. She explained…
One main thing that got changed is that Defender Strange was actually saving me at the beginning and it was a turning point, that when he died it was me being heartbroken over the fact that someone who cared and was protecting me had passed away. Then, when we did reshoots it was this main drastic change that Defender Strange was actually betraying me and trying to take my power away from me.
This change to the story made for a whole new dynamic between Doctor Strange and Chavez. Rather than just being indifferent to him at the outset, America Chavez has some serious trust issues she needs to get over if she wants to defeat Scarlet Witch. Strange himself is given a unique insight into his own patterns of behavior, and he’ll have to fix those if he wants to emerge victorious.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now available on home video and streaming on Disney+.
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