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WandaVision almost featured Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has revealed.
Strange was at one point set to appear in the finale, with Marvel making a deal with Cumberbatch to feature in the episode. Feige explained to Rolling Stone why the decision was made to remove Strange. "Some people might say, 'Oh, it would've been so cool to see Dr. Strange,'" Feige said. "But it would have taken away from Wanda, which is what we didn't want to do. We didn't want the end of the show to be commoditized to go to the next movie – here's the white guy, 'Let me show you how power works.'"
Per head writer Jac Schaeffer, another plan was to have Strange sending Wanda messages via the series' commercial breaks, and Strange showing up in an advert himself was discussed.
Writing the character out of the series meant Doctor Strange 2 also had to be changed, with Feige describing the Marvel creative process as "a wonderful combination of very dedicated coordination, and chaos. Chaos magic."
WandaVision infamously gave rise to a ton of fan theories online, most of which never proved true. Alongside speculation over the aerospace engineer and who that mystery cameo might be was theorizing that Doctor Strange would make an appearance at some point – bolstered by the fact that Wanda will next be seen in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. While that never played out, theorizers can probably take heart from the fact that there were actually plans for Strange to appear.
The Disney Plus series ended with Wanda bringing down the Hex – losing Vision and their twin children Billy and Tommy Maximoff in the process – and vanishing into the wilderness, where she was last seen suited up as Scarlet Witch and studying the ancient spell book known as the Darkhold. Elizabeth Olsen has said there is a "natural progression" between WandaVision and Doctor Strange 2 – so expect that final post-credits sting to be significant in the sequel movie.
All nine episodes of WandaVision are streaming now on Disney Plus, and the next Marvel TV show to arrive is Loki, which lands June 11. Until then, check out everything we know about Marvel Phase 4 so far – and find the best Disney Plus prices and deals.
