Doctor Stephen Strange may have the ability to see 14,000,605 futures, but his actor Benedict Cumberbatch cannot. So let’s cut him a bit of slack for being wrong when he initially said that he would not be reprising his role as Doctor Strange for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.
Cumberbatch retracted that statement on the red carpet at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, telling Business Insider, “I got that wrong, I am in the next one… Don’t ever believe anything I say.” This comes a week after Cumberbatch told Variety he wasn’t in Doomsday but that Strange would be “in a lot” of Avengers: Secret Wars as “he’s quite central to where things might go.”
Cumberbatch’s reaction suggests that he wasn’t pulling the usual shenanigans other Marvel actors do when they’re trying to preserve a movie’s secrets, as when Andrew Garfield insisted he wasn’t in Spider-Man: No Way Nome or when trades scoop that Chris Evans will be back as Captain America in Doomsday but the actor says Rogers is “retired.” And that’s good because, honestly, the omission of Doctor Strange may have been one of the more surprising parts of Avengers: Doomsday, even more than the reveal that Robert Downey Jr. would return not as Tony Stark but the Fantastic Four‘s arch-enemy Doctor Doom.
Doctor Strange is the Marvel hero most tied to Doom, outside of course the Fantastic Four. In addition to being a scientific genius whose intellect rivals that of Reed Richards, Victor Von Doom is a powerful sorcerer, a talent he learned from his mother. Thanks to that magical heritage, Doom’s attacks often require help from Doctor Strange. In fact, the upcoming Marvel Comics crossover One World Under Doom kicks off with Doom taking the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme, a title most often held by Strange.
But even more compelling are the stories in which Doom and Strange must join forces. There’s the 1989 classic miniseries Triumph and Torment, in which the duo fight to save Doom’s mother from the clutches of Mephisto. Triumph and Torment later leads to a storyline that has clear implications for Avengers: Doomsday. In the series Infamous Iron Man, Victor Von Doom becomes a hero and takes the place of the absent Tony Stark, assuming the role of Iron Man. At the end of that storyline, Doom recruits Strange to help him find his mother’s spirit, once again under attack by Mephisto.
But the biggest connection between the two relates to the film that follows Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars. Although Marvel has published a few different major stories under the title Secret Wars, the upcoming movie seems to adapt the 2015 event in which Doom recreates the universe in his image. Doom gains this godlike power by facing off with the Beyonders at the edge of the universe. And who is at his side at this event? Stephen Strange.
Throughout Secret Wars, Strange is the only person besides Doom who remembers the universe as it was. Although he’s convinced that Doom’s reign is preferable to all other alternatives (a comic plot point that the “14,000,605 futures” bit from Avengers: Endgame references), he tries to serve as Victor’s conscience, a devil’s bargain he feels compelled to make.
The tension and admiration between the two Doctors are the best parts of Secret Wars and Infamous Iron Man. It’s impossible to imagine that the upcoming Avengers movies could tell their stories well without it, so we’re all glad that Cumberbatch was wrong this time.
Avengers: Doomsday releases in 2026.
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From https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/avengers-doomsday-doctor-strange-benedict-cumberbatch/
