Fans of the wildly popular "WandaVision" series on Disney Plus might be disappointed to discover that they missed out on a surprise cameo because the production team didn't want a white male coming in to save the day.
Paul Bettany, who played Vision in the series, had teased fans with hints referring to a planned cameo of Dr. Strange, another superhero character from the Marvel universe, but the series ended without his appearance.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige later revealed that they wanted to have the Scarlet Witch character stand on her own instead of depending on a white male to help save her.
"Some people might say, 'Oh, it would've been so cool to see Doctor Strange,'" Feige said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
"But it would have taken away from Wanda," he explained. "We didn't want the end of the show to be commoditized to go to the next movie — here's the white guy, 'Let me show you how power works.'"
Feige confirmed some fans' suspicions that the series was originally planned to dovetail into the second Dr. Strange movie with an appearance by Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor who portrays the magical superhero. But rather than diminish the Wanda character, they wrote out Dr. Strange altogether.
He even admitted that some scenes written into the series were specifically written to reference the cameo that never materialized.
Cumberbatch himself referred to the failed cameo and apologized to disappointed fans while appearing on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
"If it didn't happen, then I am sorry about that," he said.
The two characters are still planned to share the screen when the movie "Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" is released to theaters on March 25, 2022.
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