Doctor Strange star confirms his MCU return isn't for the movie we expected

If you haven’t already seen the news, Benedict Cumberbatch has confirmed when he’ll be returning to the MCU.

In a conversation with Variety, Cumberbatch confirmed that he will be back soon, but not in Avengers: DOOMSDAY, which is on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

The next Marvel film to see is Captain America: Brave New World

In the candid interview, the actor says, “the character not aligning with this part of the story,” referring to the next big Avengers event movie.

Instead, it’ll be Avengers: Secret Wars, where Doctor Strange will step into a pivotal role in stopping Doctor Doom.

After hinting that Strange will be in “a lot” of Secret Wars, the actor continued, “He’s quite central to where things might go.”

Cumberbatch also discussed the third Doctor Strange movie, though is remaining pretty tight-lipped on the details beyond how good Marvel is to work with.

“They are very open to discussing where we go next,” he said, going on to say that Marvel asked, “Who do you want to write and direct the next one?”

This hints that perhaps director Sam Raimi’s return isn’t set in stone. Or, perhaps, that Cumberbatch was asked who he wanted to work with ahead of Raimi signing on.

Talking on what it’s like to play the sorcerer, he said, “He’s a complex, contradictory, troubled human who’s got these extraordinary abilities, so there’s potent stuff to mess about with.”

Unless Doctor Strange 3 ends up sandwiched between the next two Avengers outings, which could be likely, we won’t see him again until he goes toe-to-toe with Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom.

It’ll be great to see the British actor back in the cloak and quipping with the rest of the cast.

In universe, the character is currently investigating incursion events - which could even be the arrival of Doctor Doom - after the events of the second film.