Wanda Maximoff’s last two appearances in live-action conflicted with each other. A grieving hero in WandaVision turns into a villain hellbent on tearing the multiverse down in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Well, the original draft for that movie put the Scarlet Witch in a very different spot.
Despite being in a very public feud with Marvel over his removal from X-Men ’97, Beau DeMayo is using his social media to reveal details about an early script for Multiverse of Madness, confirming a rumor that’s been making the rounds.
“OG drafts did her justice,” DeMayo said on X. “Wanda was with Strange recovering after Westview, feeling bad about what she did. She helps him, Wong and Chavez (who she tutors) beat Nightmare across Multiverse, where she also sees her variants happy with her kids.”
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Before Scarlet Witch entered the picture, Nightmare was the rumored villain for the movie for a long time, and it turns out that Marvel was going to use a variant of Strange to help bring him to life. “Still, Wanda resists and she — not Chavez — helps Strange save the day against Nightmare, who turns out to be a Darkhold-corrupted Strange variant,” DeMayo added.
However, while the villain of the movie wasn’t all that different, the emotional climax of the film was going to change drastically, with an MCU mainstay losing their life. “Only after saving the day, unable to resist finding a multiverse where she can be with her kids, does Wanda — sobbing — break from Strange and accidentally beheads Wong, who tries to stop her from fleeing into the multiverse. That was film’s cliffhanger,” DeMayo explained.
That obviously would’ve changed a lot about the future of the MCU. Wong has become a connecting force in the franchise, appearing in projects like She-Hulk and Shang-Chi to prove that the heroes around the world and still keeping tabs on one another despite The Avengers no longer being around. His death and Scarlet Witch’s escape would’ve put the MCU on a completely different path, maybe even making it easier for Marvel Studios to reconfigure things.