Well, spoilers, obviously…

After the great, if brief and utterly traumatic appearance of long-time fan favourite for the role John Krasinski appearing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as Reed Richards, we’re all wondering if we will see him again in the MCU or if another actor will play Richards down the line.

In the movie we meet the Illuminati, a group of super-intelligent and brilliant heroes who oversee world events made up of Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier, Maria Rambeau as Captain Marvel, Captain Carter, Black Bolt, Baron Mordo, and Reed Richards, left, but these aren’t the heroes we know from the MCU, X-Men movies, What If..? or even The Inhumans, these are varients of the characters we know as they are the heroes of Earth-838 while it’s established the MCU Earth is 616.

And it’s just as well as they all, except Mordo, face gruesome and shocking – for the MCU – deaths at the hands of Elizabeth Olsen’s increasingly angry and crazy Scarlet Witch.

But, in the movie we also meet several Doctor Strange variants among others and they’re all played by Benedict Cumberbatch, so isn’t it therefore possible that Earth-616’s Reed Richards could/should also be played by Krasinski?

Well, that was addressed by writer Michael Waldron who says he had nothing to do with casting on this movie or future ones but he DID work closely with Marvel and Krasinski to bring this character, who has never appeared in the MCU before, to life: “I’m not involved in the casting, but as with all of these performers, I worked really closely with him in bringing that character to life with him and Sam [Raimi, director],” Waldon says.

“And especially on that one, because that was the one character that had no real precedent ever in the MCU, at least. Figuring out how we want this guy to be — that was a lot of fun. That particular character is certainly one of my favorite comic book characters.”

Yes, that’s lovely but will he back? “[That’s] a question for somebody else,” he says.

No Way Home’s Jon Watts steps down as Fantastic Four director

Ok, but what about the others? Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter and Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier? Will we see them again in the main MCU now that we’ve seen them in the Multiverse?

Waldon says the fans will ‘find out’ how they play into the wider MCU soon enough: “There are definitely ramifications, questions, it’s all there.

“They existed as these heroes in at least one universe. Now, what does that mean moving forward? I guess we’ll find out. But it all, in each case, felt like a really exciting opportunity and thing to tease.”

Just to be clear, we don’t believe that Anson Mount’s Black Bolt, Captain Carter or Professor X are any of the ones we’ve met before in The Inhumans, What If..? or the X-Men movies, we believe these are variants of those, in fact, we’re almost sure that Professor X is the one from the 1990s animated series as he shares that Xavier’s theme music, yellow hoverchair and blue circles from his head as he uses his powers.

Anyway…

Whatever happens, it was fun to see those other Marvel words, characters and universes tied into the MCU and we cannot wait to see what the future holds for them all.

What say you all?

Source: Variety