After its successful theatrical run, where it grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide, “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness” is now streaming on Disney+ (read our review here). And every Marvel movie’s time has an afterlife after its time in theaters where deleted scenes and scrapped ideas from them make their way to the fans. Sam Raimi‘s latest film is no different in this regard, with an alternate version of Raimi regular Bruce Campbell‘s post-credits scene and other deleted scenes.
But perhaps the most intriguing thing scrapped from “Multiverse Of Madness” was The Wasp’s being a part of the Illuminati. In the audio commentary on the film’s digital release, writer Michael Waldron talked to producer Richie Palmer about his initial idea to drop the team into an early draft of the film’s script. And The Wasp was originally part of the group, too, but she met a cruel but funny fate at the hands of Wanda.
I was just trying to get through the first draft of the script desperately in August of 2020,” said Waldron, “[I] Didn’t really have a second half of the second act and had no idea where the hell I was going. And I just thought, ‘Well, why don’t I take a swing and drop the Illuminati in there?'” Palmer then chimed in, “But, Michael, I remember reading your first draft of the Illuminati stuff and just bring in disbelief, going, ‘She kills all the Illuminati? He had her kill all the Illuminati. We’re never going to be able to do this. Wait, can we do this? I wish we could do this.'” Of course, for those who’ve seen the film, that’s exactly what Wanda does.
Then Waldron talked about The Wasp being included in the earliest version of the Illuminati he put to paper. “I think originally, the Wasp was in a version of the Illuminati, and the Wasp shrunk down and flew at Wanda, and [Wanda] just clapped her hands and just smushed the Wasp in the first draft.” That’s a hilarious but decidedly unceremonious exit for a hero that’s still a part of the MCU (granted, this would have taken place in an alternate universe). But Palmer then spoke about how Kevin Feige and the other producers encouraged such ideas in the developmental stage. “Yeah, I was so scared someone was going to tell us we were going too far, and nobody ever did,” he said. “Sam, you always helped us take it there. Kevin always encouraged us to push it further.”
Waldron didn’t specify if The Wasp he had Wanda clap to death was Evangeline Lilly‘s Hope Van Dyne or Michelle Pfeiffer‘s Janet Van Dyne, but maybe he never got that far with the idea. The final version of the Illuminati in “Multiverse Of Madness” is still a treat for Marvel fans, though. Waldron has Patrick Stewart reprise his role as Professor X as part of the group, and Jon Krasinski shows up as The Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards. However, both of them and the other Illuminati still get killed off by Wanda, to much comedic effect.
In any case, Lilly’s version of The Wasp will show up in next year’s “Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania,” where there will most likely be a lot more of Phase 4’s time-loopy weirdness.