Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness brought director Sam Raimi to the MCU for his first Marvel Studios outing after his work on the 2000s Spider-Man trilogy. And more often than not, when Sam Raimi takes on a new project, his longtime friend Bruce Campbell comes along for the ride in one capacity or another.
In Doctor Strange 2, Campbell brought his classic brand of comedy to the story as the Pizza Poppa in Earth-838, making his mark in the movie's second post-credits scene as well. He also had fun promoting the movie often throughout Marvel Studios' promotional run, although his most recent comments stirred up some interesting conversation about his MCU debut.
In an interview with Screen Rant at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, Campbell joked that he has turned down a handful of roles in the MCU before joining Raimi's Doctor Strange 2. This led to plenty of discourse regarding what he could have actually turned down in past MCU movies, but now, Campbell has cleared the air on what he actually meant to convey.
Bruce Campbell Clears Up MCU Casting Report
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Bruce Campbell took to Twitter to clarify the confusion surrounding previous comments he made about turning down past MCU roles.
In the aforementioned interview, he said that he had said no to plenty of big roles, finally saying yes to the smaller role that he had been looking for:
"Well, the MCU just finally caught up with me. Because I've turned them down for so many of these big parts. And they said, 'How about a small part instead?' I go, 'You know what? That's what I'm looking for.'"
His quote was taken seriously by ScreenRant, reporting in their headline that "Bruce Campbell Turned Down Big MCU Roles Until Sam Raimi Joined." In response, Campbell made it abundantly clear that he was being sarcastic and that the headline was false, joking about the idea of an actor declining a major Marvel role:
"Total BS, but fun to imagine having the stones to turn down the 'big MCU roles.' This is the danger of sarcasm."
Campbell Joined the MCU On His Terms
Bruce Campbell is never one to shy away from conversations about comic book movies, whether it be campaigning for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 or even commenting on Amber Heard's legal troubles in relation to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. This time, however, he had to make sure that fans knew when to draw the line between his comedic responses and what had actually happened in his career.
Campbell's relationship with Sam Raimi is no secret, meaning it wasn't a shock for fans to see him take a role in Raimi's first MCU outing, albeit one that only gave him a couple of scenes. But with these comments, he seemed to understand that he led fans to believe he had been a contender for other big MCU parts,
Even with the confusion about these quotes, however, Campbell still has a great experience to look back on with an MCU movie finally under his belt.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now streaming on Disney+.
