It’s safe to say that we probably wouldn’t have the Marvel Cinematic Universe if not for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, which proved the viability of fun comic book movies that take their characters and concepts seriously—without being serious movies that are clearly ashamed of their source material. Now, with Raimi returning to comic book movies (and movies in general, since he’s been on a prolonged hiatus from directing) with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, it sounds like the guy who gave the world Bully Maguire and Peter’s wacky Ukrainian landlord would be happy to stick around in the MCU for a while.
Speaking with Fandango, Raimi said that the MCU is “like the world’s best toy box” and he’d “love to come back and tell another tale,” especially given the “great management they’ve got there” (an oddly specific note, but perhaps it means that Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige gave Raimi a pretty long leash). He also noted that, while he doesn’t have any specific plans in mind, but it “sounds beautiful” to hypothetically work with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst again someday, be it on another Spider-Man movie or something else.
Fandango also asked Raimi about his familiarity with the existing MCU canon, and he said that he had actually only ever seen Iron Man, Avengers, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange before making this movie, so he said he was “not that familiar” with the deeper cuts of the series. (None of those movies have a Spider-Man in them, if you want to take some inferences from that.) Still, though, Raimi did note that he has obviously been a fan of Marvel comics for a long time, telling Fandango that he’s “super familiar with the characters, and their stories, and their interactions” from the old days.