If you’ve read my review of ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ you’ll know that, despite having enjoyed seeing how Sam Raimi’s gene slipped —unfortunately, not completely— into the Marvel Universe, the second adventure not so in solitaire from the Sorcerer Supreme turned out to be quite disappointing for the most diverse reasons.
Definition of “Fan Service”
One of them is located in the central section of the film, when the notorious appearance of the Illuminati almost completely stops the narrative and opens the doors to a designed sequence, in my view to start the cheers and applause of a stalls, a priori, eager for cameos and familiar faces.
One of them, of course, was that of a John Krasinski who ended up wearing the stretchy Reed Richards suit after months and months of constant bombardment on social media, where much of the fandom dreamed of the actor playing the leader of the Fantastic Four.
Now, thanks to the audio commentary of ‘Doctor Strange 2’ that accompanies the film on Disney + we can listen to Sam Raimi himself revealing that it was Feige himself who decided to sign Krasinski. The reason probably won’t surprise you.
“It’s so funny that Kevin Feige chose John Krasinski because the fans dreamed of who the perfect Reed Richards would be. And because this is an alternate universe, I think Kevin said, ‘Let’s make that dream come true.’ their interpretations”.
For his part, the writer michael waldron recently commented in an interview that easy applause has never been sought with these kinds of decisions at Marvel, stressing that, in his point of view, it has never revolved around fan service.
“It’s easy to be seduced by easy laughter and easy cheering. But that was never what Marvel or Sam [Raimi] they were interested. It was always about what’s right for the story, what’s right for Steven Strange, what’s right for Wanda. It never revolved around fan service, really. It was like, ‘If these Illuminati characters are there, they must be because they’re the Illuminati in the comics. That was our pole star.”
Personally, I’d say a little of fan service yes it has been…