These days, avoiding Marvel confirmation of any kind might be an occupational hazard. For example, today, “Top Gun: Maverick” star Lewis Pullman was on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote his Apple TV+ series, “Lessons In Chemistry,” co-starring Brie Larson, which is vying for Emmy Contention now. The actor was asked about this upcoming appearance in Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” movie, reportedly playing the character of Sentry, and the actor skirted around the subject as much as possible in a squirm-inducing segment of the interview.
And while not as cagey, we recently spoke to Benedict Cumberbatch for an upcoming episode of our Bingeworthy TV podcast for his forthcoming appearance in the show “Eric,” which debuts on Netflix on May 30.
READ MORE: ‘Eric’ Trailer: New Netflix Limited Series Starring Benedict Cumberbatch Asks Where The Real Monsters Lie
In the series from writer Abi Morgan (“Suffragette”), Cumberbatch plays a desperate father—and New York’s leading puppeteers and creator of the hugely popular children’s television show— alongside a tenacious cop who battles his own demons on the streets of 1980s New York as he searches for his missing nine-year-old son.
We’ll have more on that series closer to release, including our review, but while we had him, we couldn’t help but ask about what’s next for his Doctor Strange character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Asked about trying to maintain his focus as the character while “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness” underwent significant rewrites and reshoots— given that it was initially supposed to arrive right after “WandaVision” and before “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” but ended up being delayed, and followed the latter ‘Spidey’ film instead—Cumberbatch seemed to be oblivious to any dramas. He also said that as part of the big Marvel machinery, you just want to focus and “knuckle” down on what you’re doing as an actor.
“I was unaware of the articles. You’re part of a big machine, but you’re just trying to solve the problems on a set like any other job, he explained about this time on ‘Multiverse of Madness.’ “And, yeah, it’s a massive sand pit to play in with very big and expensive, breakable toys. But you can only really do that if you’re loose and free and just doing your work as an actor. So, I kind of knuckled down and did that.”
Cumberbatch praised Marvel for constantly iterating and trying to elevate their films and singled out how an actor can affect a big machine with a brilliant idea, much like Robert Downey Jr. did in the first “Avengers” film.
“I take my hat off to anybody who’s using the resources to try and make something better and just improve and improve and improve right up to the end,” he said. “I mean, the most famous stories after the premiere, I think of the first ‘Avengers,’ Downey Jr. suggested the Shawarma scene and then it was put in for the final cut that then got distributed. I mean, that’s fun to think you can still do that.”
Asked about “Doctor Strange 3,” whether it would arrive before the next ‘Avengers’ film and continue the story teased at the end of ‘Multiverse of Madness’ with Strange and Charlize Theron’s Clea sorceress character trying to fix a multiverse incursion he had created, Cumberbatch said he wasn’t sure if that was the case. “Who knows!” he exclaimed, seemingly as eager to know about what’s next as we all are.
He’ll at least presumably appear in “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” (or “Avengers 5,” whatever it’s called these days), right? Cumberbatch said he just wasn’t made privy to the details, seemingly more in the dark than coy. “We will see. We will find out,” he said. “I’m not sure where he’s been and what he’s been up to and who with, but yeah, I know as little as you.”
Someone who seems to have an idea of where things are heading is Marvel writer Michael Waldron, The author of ‘Doctor Strange 2’ and the next two ‘Avengers’ movies, who teased in 2022, right after ‘Multiverse Of Madness’ came out the direction of that post-credits scene.
“It felt like the perfect time to finally introduce this very pivotal character [Clea] in Doctor Strange’s canon,” Waldron told Marvel.com at the time. “Strange went to the Multiverse and tampered with it as much as you probably possibly could. I don’t think it’s any surprise per the rules that Reed [Richards] laid out that he caused an Incursion. So now there’s an oncoming collision of universes. But what does that mean for the MCU? We’ll find out. But we’ve got a semi-corrupted Doctor Strange and Clea on the case! So it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
More from this interview soon; in the interim, you can watch the trailer for the intriguing-looking “Eric” Netflix mini-series below.