Patrick Stewart says Doctor Strange cameo was "frustrating and disappointing" to film
Stewart was talking about the odd, isolated way his last appearance as Professor Charles Xavier was shot
With the benefit of hindsight, it feels like 2022's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness was at least a mild turning point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film did great at the box office (especially by the standards of the franchise’s output over the last few years) and checked plenty of boxes—big name director in Sam Raimi, follow-up to the massively successful WandaVision, building on a well-liked original movie. And yet there was a sense of exhaustion that hung over the whole thing. Nowhere more than in the movie’s big, flashy cameo sequence that makes up a big chunk of its middle act, with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Strange confronted by a number of tantalizing Marvel What If…?s—including the first appearance of Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier in the MCU. In the role (his first time as Xavier since the character died in the future-set Logan), Stewart shows up in his wheelchair, does a bit of pontificating—and then abruptly dies.
