Spider-Man director Sam Raimi to helm Doctor Strange

Sam Raimi, the mind behind Evil Dead trilogy and the original live-action Spider-Man franchise, is in talks to director Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for Marvel, according to Variety. Raimi would be stepping in for original director Scott Derrickson, who exited the project in January over "creative differences" with the studio. Benedict Cumberbatch is set to reprise the role of Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange, alongside Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch.

It was a bit of a bummer when Derrickson departed the director's chair—he remains on board the project as producer—seeing as how the Sinister filmmaker ushered the character into the MCU with 2016's Doctor Strange. But woo boy, Raimi would be one hell of a replacement, considering his past work delving into the odd and mystical. Reports have gone back and forth on just how much of a horror movie Multiverse of Madness will be, though, with Marvel president Kevin Feige downplaying that element in December 2019:

"The way, when I was a kid in the 80s, Spielberg did an amazing job," Feige said. "I mean, there are horrifying sequences in Raiders that I as a little kid would when their faces melted. Or Temple of Doom, of course, or Gremlins, or Poltergeist. These are the movies that invented the PG-13 rating, by the way."

Raimi hasn't had a directing credit since the 2017 short film The Black Ghiandola, although he's served as producer on a more than a few killer films like Crawl and Don't Breathe. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set to hit theaters on May 7, 2021.