Psych! Benedict Cumberbatch Will Be In Avengers: Doomsday After All, So What Does This Mean For Doctor Strange 3?

There are a lot of upcoming Marvel movies to look forward to, but it’s safe to say that the biggest of the bunch currently scheduled are Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. These flicks are filling the same role for The Multiverse Saga that Infinity War and Endgame did for The Infinity Saga, so count on a lot of Marvel heroes teaming back up to vanquish a mighty threat; in this case, Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. Recently, though, Benedict Cumberbatch said he would not be appearing in Doomsday, but now it turns out that’s not the case after all. Still, that news now has me wondering I it has any implications for Doctor Strange 3.

Benedict Cumberbatch Confirms He Will Actually Be In Doomsday

After mentioning last week that Doctor Strange would be absent from Avengers: Doomsday due to "the character not aligning with this part of the story,” Cumberbatch has now revealed that he misspoke, telling Business Insider:

The Sherlock star later coyly responded, “Don’t ever believe anything I say” when the interviewer brought up how other Marvel actors have lied about their involvement in movies (we’re looking at you, Andrew Garfield). Still, I think if he took the time to walk back on his previous comment, then we can safely say that Cumberbatch will actually reprise Stephen Strange in Doomsday, as opposed to this just being an act of deception. Then again, this is the same actor who was said to be playing John Harrison in Star Trek Into Darkness, only for the character to actually be Khan Noonien Singh, so I wouldn’t put it past Cumberbatch to keep mum on what’s truly happening.

Does This News Mean Anything For Doctor Strange 3?

Just so we’re all on the same page, Doctor Strange is now confirmed for both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, and I’m so pleased about this. It’s one thing for Ant-Man and Hawkeye to be absent from Infinity War, but Strange has been a pretty important player in the Multiverse Saga so far thanks to the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It would have been weird for him to absent from Part 1 of this epic event, although I guess that could have been explained away by having Doctor Doom somehow imprison him before Doomsday begins.

But now that this has been cleared up, I’m wondering if this any way impacts what’s being planned for Doctor Strange 3. When we last saw Stephen Strange in Multiverse of Madness’ ending, he’d developed a third eye as a result of using the Darkhold, and then Charlize Theron’s Clea persuaded him to follow her into the Dark Dimension in the Doctor Strange 2 mid-credits scene. Before today, I’d assumed that Strange not appearing in Avengers: Doomsday would be explained away by him being busy with whatever goes down in Doctor Strange 3. And just like Tom Holland’s Spider-Man 4, I assumed the threequel would be released between Doomsday and Secret Wars. Now I’m not so sure.

After The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ release in July, we’re done with MCU movies until February 13, 2026, a date Marvel Studios has blocked off. However, we don’t know what’s going in that spot yet, so is it possible that Doctor Strange 3 could slot in there? Maybe if it’s made a lot of progress behind the scenes that we don’t know about, but that would still need to be a ridiculously fast turnaround. Nevertheless, I like the idea of the next Doctor Strange movie directly paving the way for Doomsday.

Alas, it’s much more plausible that Doctor Strange 3 will either be saved for between Doomsday and Secret Wars like I originally suspected or perhaps not arrive until sometime post-Secret Wars. It would be nice to get an official statement from Marvel Studios about what’s happening with the threequel, but for now, I’ll just enjoy knowing Doctor Strange will be in both of the next Avengers movies.