Super Bowl Sunday has long been a big day for marketing major upcoming Marvel movies and, in between this year's football game, the studio revealed a new trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Midway through the mind-bending preview of the film, many fans believe they clocked Patrick Stewart’s iconic voice as well as the corner of his head. The X-Men actor has now addressed the viral moment with the perfect response.
Kevin McCarthy, co-host of CinemaBlend's own ReelBlend podcast, asked Patrick Stewart about if the massive response to the trailer (which included Batman comparisons) reached him on Super Bowl Sunday. Here was the Picard actor’s cryptic and witty response:
I don’t look at social media and that is mostly a time issue, but I must say, before bedtime on Sunday evening, I had plenty of communications from friends and some people I hardly knew at all making reference to [the Doctor Strange trailer], saying ‘Ah, is that you? Is that you?’ And of course, you know, I was just at home waiting to watch football, so how could it possibly be me. So, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
Patrick Stewart was just going about his day when, apparently, his phone blew up with people reacting to the rumor asking if he’s in fact in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The moment in the trailer was a massive surprise and one that got Stewart trending right away. It's understandable given that it could mark the first time fans have ever heard the sound of Professor X’s voice in an MCU production. While the actor gave no confirmation, you have to love he delightfully played it off by saying he was "watching football" at that time.
In the Doctor Strange trailer, Benedict Cumberbatch’s titular sorcerer appears to get captured by a group of sorts and comes face to face with a nondescript man, who says, “We should tell him the truth.” It really sounds like Patrick Stewart, and Marvel fans believe the actor will return as a member of the Illuminati, which Professor X is a founding member of in the comics.
The Iluminati are a secret group of heroes who convene to make world-changing decisions in hush-hush fashion. In the upcoming Doctor Strange, Stephen seems to have broken the multiverse wide open, which would theoretically the group's work perhaps pertinent to the storyline. Other members of the society in the comics are Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Namor, Doctor Strange and Iron Man, who some fans also believe will be played by Tom Cruise in the Multiverse of Madness.
Because Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange movie will see Marvel having access to a number of alternate dimensions, almost anything is fair play here. There looks to be multiple versions of Doctor Strange and, if Patrick Stewart is in it, he could either be a variant of Professor X or the very same one from the Fox X-Men franchise.
The actor likely isn't going to give any concrete answers, so we'll likely just get more has cheeky responses like, “we’ll have to wait and see.” We'll find out for sure when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens on May 6. And be sure to check out the original film using a Disney+ subscription.
