Benedict Cumberbatch has officially blamed Peter Parker for breaking the multiverse with his antics in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The multiverse has become a hot topic in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after it was first explored in Loki season 1, as Tom Hiddleston's trickster god came into contact with Time Variance Authority, a group dedicated to pruning the branching timelines of the universe. It is also essential to the next Cumberbatch film, which is literally titled Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and explores the multiversal consequences of No Way Home, including an evil Doctor Strange variant.
This is all happening because of the events of No Way Home, in which Peter Parker asked Doctor Strange to cast a spell to make people forget that he is Spider-Man. However, while the sorcerer is mid-spell, Peter keeps making addendums to his request, asking for his friends and family to still remember his secret identity. His constant distractions cause a rift in the multiverse, pulling in characters from other Spider-Man universes, including Green Goblin, Doc Ock, and Sandman from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, The Lizard and Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, and Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as their versions of Peter Parker.
While speaking with Total Film for their new issue, Cumberbatch claps back at people blaming Doctor Strange for breaking the multiverse. He says that too many people are writing off the events of Doctor Strange 2 as "He’s going to have to pay for his arrogance." He says that, while arrogance is involved of course, Strange was taking a "calculated risk," adding that Peter Parker's disruptions are really what caused things to go wrong. Read the full quote below:
I know we all love Peter Parker, but can we just rewind to the point that the spell is interrupted something like six times? I think it’s just too easily written off as: “He’s going to have to pay for his arrogance.” It’s not all arrogance, actually. I think some of it is a very calculated risk. But we’ll see where that takes him [in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness].
At the end of No Way Home, it seemed that the multiverse had been fully repaired, thanks to Peter's heroic sacrifice. However, the Doctor Strange 2 trailer revealed that all might not be entirely as it seems. The film, which also stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, and Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch and comes out on May 6, 2022, will explore the continuing disastrous repercussions of that moment.
Naturally, it makes sense that Cumberbatch would be in his own character's corner when it comes to assigning blame. However, it takes two to tango, and the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness wouldn't have occurred if either one of the characters had changed their minds. Regardless of who is to blame, this multiversal rift is causing major developments in every corner of the MCU, so fans are winning either way.
Source: Total Film
