Loki head writer Michael Waldron’s comedy background came in handy while he was scripting director Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Waldron spoke to Cinema Blend about his upcoming Starz series Heels and discussed his experience making two Marvel projects back to back. “Yeah, I mean, God, it was a weird year, as it was for everybody,” Waldron said. “I was getting ready to go to Atlanta to be on set for Loki when I got basically pulled onto Doctor Strange 2, and was starting in on that with Sam Raimi. So I ended up spending all of my 2020 on Zooms with Sam, figuring out that movie, and that was a blast. Then I got to be in London for five months at the top of this year making that movie.”
“So yeah, it was great. It was really fun to go from from Loki straight into Doctor Strange,” Waldron continued. “It was a totally different thing, you know, making a show about a villain to making a movie about a hero. It was good, and felt like I got to work completely different muscles. And then just getting to be on the set with Sam Raimi, there’s nothing cooler than that.”
Before making the jump to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Waldron produced YouTube Red’s comedy series Good Game and collaborated with Dan Harmon on Community and Rick and Morty. Interestingly, his comedic experience proved useful when he set to work on the horror-flavored Multiverse of Madness.
“Comedy helps, because if nothing else, it’s just, like, the pace. I think the pacing of comedy is similar, in a way, to the pacing of thrillers, of thrilling movies,” Waldron explained. “Sam likes to work at an accelerated pace and everything, and that was something I was very comfortable with from Rick and Morty, from Loki. So our sensibilities clicked very well.”
Along with directing Sony’s original Spider-Man trilogy, Raimi is famous for blending horror and comedy with his Evil Dead trilogy. He took over as director on the Doctor Strange sequel after Scott Derrickson stepped down in January 2020, with Waldron coming board to write the script. Waldron felt the ongoing coronavirus (COVID) pandemic allowed him and Raimi to push the film in an even scarier direction.
“Even though it’s not a horror movie, there is this sort of spookiness throughout it. It’s part of what makes that movie work so well,” Waldron said earlier this year.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness arrives in theaters on March 25, 2022. Waldron is also expected to be involved with Loki Season 2, which is currently in pre-production.
Source: Cinema Blend
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