In the wake of Spider-Man: No Way Home, it’s hard to know what’s real anymore. For months and months, Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire all flat-out denied that the previous Peter Parkers would turn up in Jon Watts’ third MCU Spider-flick. But despite their many straight-faced protestations, it turned out – spoiler warning, but come on, you’ve seen it already right? – that Garfield and Maguire were indeed in the film, and not just in minor appearances. Now, the Marvel rumour mill is kicking into overdrive once more for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, with online fan theories positing all kinds of A-listers who could cameo as variants of familiar heroes, as well as surprise reappearances from faces of comic book movies past.
Nudging that into overdrive was the film’s latest trailer – which saw a certain bald head (out of focus, shot from behind) intone: “We should tell him the truth.” If the trailer simply lists the character responsible as ‘Mystery Voice’, it’s not so mysterious to anyone who knows the X-Men movies – those distinctive tones, surely, belong to Patrick Stewart, who played Professor Charles Xavier for years on the big screen. But is there more to it than that? “I’ll quote the first X-Men movie and say, ‘Are you sure you saw what you saw?’,” laughs Multiverse Of Madness producer Richie Palmer when questioned by Empire. “There are infinite versions of these characters, and just because you may have heard something familiar doesn’t mean it’s someone you have seen before.”
The rumours don’t just stop at the possibility that the original cinematic Professor X will appear in the film at some point – the prevailing theory is that he’ll show up as part of the Illuminati, a superheroic cabal from the comic book which has at times featured Xavier, plus Iron Man, Mr Fantastic, and Doctor Strange himself, among others. It's thought that some of the biggest names in Hollywood might show up in some of those roles: could we have some super-secret, ultra-high-profile variants on our hands? “As you saw in Spider-Man: No Way Home, some rumors ended up being true, some did not,” says Palmer. “I would love to see Tony again, but some rumours are just rumours. I will say that I love the Illuminati. But if we ever introduce the Illuminati in the future, it might be more MCU-driven and have some more ties to our characters in the MCU, versus just replicating what’s in the comics.”
Marvel remains as tight-lipped as ever, then – and let’s face it, No Way Home was all the more fun for the margin of doubt over those Peter Parker appearances going in. See you in the cinema for answers…
Read more about Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness in the upcoming issue of Empire – talking to Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, director Sam Raimi, writer Michael Waldron, producer Richie Palmer and Marvel boss Kevin Feige about a movie that breaks all the rules of reality. Find it on newsstands from Thursday 17 March, or pre-order a copy online here. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness comes to cinemas from 6 May.