Raimi is renowned for directing both the Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogies. With the former, he revolutionized low-budget indie horror cinema. With the latter, he revolutionized big-budget comic book movies. If Multiverse of Madness promises to be a combination of the two, Raimi is the best man for the job. When Solo: A Star Wars Story lost its original directors due to their idiosyncratic voice, Ron Howard was hired to turn it into a safe, bland, middle-of-the-road sci-fi actioner. With Multiverse of Madness, Marvel’s head honcho Kevin Feige is taking the opposite approach.

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Instead of tasking his new director with emulating Derrickson’s style, Feige is encouraging Raimi to follow his own creative compass and lean into his own distinctive cinematic voice. In a recent interview with Empire, Feige said, “We want it to be a Sam Raimi movie. We would give notes like, ‘This action is cool – you’re competing with Avengers and Spider-Man, no problem – but don’t forget the Sam Raimi parts.’ You will see just how Sam Raimi it is, in ways that will make fans of Evil Dead II very happy.” Released six years after the groundbreaking original, Evil Dead II famously took the grisly terror of the first film to the nth degree with a game-changing dark sense of humor. The Evil Dead sequel essentially just remakes the cabin-in-the-woods storyline of the 1981 original as a pitch-black comedy.

After inspiring a generation of indie horror filmmakers with The Evil Dead, Raimi went on to helm such widely acclaimed hits as Darkman and the first two Spider-Man movies. But Evil Dead II is arguably his masterpiece – or, at least, the pinnacle of his unique style. No concept is too bizarre in the world of Evil Dead II. At one point, Bruce Campbell replaces his arm with a chainsaw.

If Feige is giving Raimi the freedom to explore ideas that go that far, then Multiverse of Madness will be a Marvel movie like no other. Whether this movie turns out to be the MCU’s best or not, it’ll almost certainly be the MCU’s weirdest entry to date. The trailers have already teased Evil Dead II-level imagination in its portrayal of a fractured spacetime continuum – zombified Avengers, evil versions of Strange, a secret multiversal society spearheaded by Patrick Stewart’s Professor X – and hopefully, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Some Marvel fans are worried about “how Sam Raimi” Multiverse of Madness will really be, since it’s a Disney-mounted summer blockbuster designed to appeal to as many international ticket-buyers as possible, but the Evil Dead comparison is a promising sign. The best parts of Raimi’s signature style – gallows humor, gruesome special effects, demonic P.O.V. shots, etc. – aren’t exactly family-friendly. But Feige has always taken risks with the idiosyncrasies of his chosen filmmakers, and PG-13 horror gems like The Others, A Quiet Place, and even Raimi’s own Drag Me to Hell have proven that there’s still room for genuine terror within the boundaries of a stricter MPAA rating.

Ultimately, Raimi’s filmmaking style is defined by its unashamed weirdness. Evil Dead II is undoubtedly the peak of this weirdness, so it’s exciting that it’s the Raimi movie that Feige chose to namedrop in relation to Multiverse of Madness. If it really leans into the Lovecraftian spookshow, this film’s multiversal horror antics could give Raimi more of a chance to explore his weirder sensibilities than his Spider-Man movies did.

There have been a ton of rumors flying around about which characters could appear via the multiversal madness of the Doctor Strange sequel – from Deadpool to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine to one of the previous Spider-Men to a Tony Stark variant played by casting runner-up Tom Cruise – but this speculation misses what’s really fun about this concept. Cameos are a very narrow pinhole through which to enjoy the premise of Doctor Strange drifting through a nightmare-scape of parallel universes.

Strange is entering a world (or, rather, an endless array of alternate worlds) where there are no clearly defined rules and literally anything could happen. It’ll be fun to have a few multiversal cameos along the way, like Stewart’s confirmed appearance, but the movie should focus more on Evil Dead-style surrealness than franchise synergy. Based on Feige’s comments to Empire, it seems he’s well aware of this and he and Raimi are committing to making Multiverse of Madness as zany and mind-boggling as it can possibly be.

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