You need to watch “WandaVision”, “What If…?” and other Marvel series to understand “Doctor Strange 2”?

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” opens in theaters this Thursday (5) and, in addition to presenting a new story about the hero, it also arrives to solve a doubt for fans: after all, the series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe really have influence on movies or not?

When the series were announced as part of the franchise, Kevin Feigepresident of Marvel Studios, made it clear how the productions will influence the future of their shared universe:

“They will be part of the MCu. Sometimes they will be like ‘Captain Marvel,’ in a different time than current events, and sometimes they will happen at the same time,” he said. “Regardless of what happens on the shows and with the characters that were in the movies, they will go through transformations that will be reflected in their upcoming movie appearances.”

“We are creating longer narrative stories for Disney+ while developing a post-[‘Vingadores: Ultimato’] Marvel Cinematic Universe. And we are managing to do something that we have never done before, which is to intertwine them from the beginning, from the plant”, he clarified to the ComicBookMovie.com. In other words, the intention, at first, was to create a web between the productions, with one linking to the other.

However, in late 2021, when some of the studio’s series had already been released, Feige backtracked: “Honestly, we try to make stories that develop in such a way that if you’re following along and you’ve watched what happened before, you’ll understand everything. And, more importantly, if you haven’t watched it, you will understand everything”, he explained to The Wrap.

CineBuzz have you watched the new movie Doctor Strange – you can check out the full review here – and, in fact, there are some productions that can help expand the experience, such as “Loki”, which presents the concept of the multiverse and the Variants, versions of the same person from other realities; or “What If…?”, which shows possibilities within the multiverse, in which the stories we already know are revisited and take new directions.

However, none of them are decisive for you to understand “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”. Even “WandaVision”, the first series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which connects directly with the events of the long, is expendable, although it presents the most amount of information to fill in the spaces left by the new Sorcerer Supreme movie.

Still, the film took a safe path so that even the least faithful viewers can watch without getting lost in the narrative. Of course, seeing Wanda Maximoff in her full form, now as the Scarlet Witch, can be strange, as her transformation takes place in “WandaVision”, but her motivations within the plot are understandable, because they are based on a different concept than featured in the series.

However, if you still want to know what you should watch before checking out “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, we’ve prepared a list and explained how the movies and series influence the plot of the new feature. Check it out by clicking here!