Now that advanced tickets for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness broke Fandango’s first day ticket sales records for any movie that has released in 2022, it seems that the second installment of Doctor Strange is going to be a success financially. How much money will the first MCU film of 2022 make after it officially releases on May 6th, 2022?

There’s no doubt that any MCU movie is going to do well at the box office, but how much it garners depends on several different factors. We know that fans are excited to see what happens after Endgame, we know that Strange played a huge role in 2021’s biggest box office film Spider-Man: No Way Home, we know that Wanda is going to appear in the film after the successful WandaVision Disney+ show, and we know that because it’s touching on the multiverse, there will be some surprising and unexpected cameos.

Another factor that shouldn’t be underestimated is how it’s received by critics and fans alike. How a film is reviewed determines how much legs it will have.

Reviews determine the long-term health of a movie

Critics get to screen films before they’re officially released in hopes of that their reviews will build momentum for a great opening weekend. Those reviews and the buzz they create will influence theatre-goers to see a film they might not be initially interested in. Just as when a movie wins the Academy Award for the best film, the ultimate review, drives demand shortly thereafter.

Nowadays it’s not just traditional critic reviews, but social media reviews (typically tweets) are allowed a few days before the more-detailed (and hopefully spoiler-free) reviews start coming out.

That all depends on when the studio decides to lift what they call an “embargo” on reviews of the movie.

When will the review embargos lift for Dr. Strange 2?

So when can we expect the reviews for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to come out? As mentioned, movie studios have what they call review embargos meaning that no reviews are allowed until the embargo is lifted. The timing of these differ, but based off how movie timelines typically work the last few Marvel movies, we can expect the social media embargo to lift up to a couple weeks AFTER its world premiere. Take a look at the embargos and when they were lifted for the last three Marvel films.

Generally it’s not difficult to estimate when embargos will be lifted, but the Doctor Strange sequel is different. If The Average Socialite is to be believed, the red carpet world premiere for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will be May 2nd. That’s just four days before the it’s released to thousands of theatres.

Why is that important? Well because social media and full review embargos can’t be lifted until after critics have watched the film. Unless there are private screenings, that means it won’t be until after the world premiere.

Once the red carpet premiere is finished in Los Angeles (it’s set for 6:30-10:30 PM), we can expect the social media embargo to be lifted with immediate social media reactions on May 3rd in the early AM once the world premiere showing has completed. And we can expect full reviews shortly thereafter. On that shortened timeline, this is a very similar to the review embargo and social media embargo to that of Spider-Man 3.

Update: A couple tweets came out the last couple days confirms that the review embargo will be lifted Tuesday, May 3rd at 6:00am PT.

some #DoctorStrange info

The first time anyone will see movie is Monday night May 2nd which is world premiere. The social embargo lifts after screening.

The review embargo lifts Tuesday, May 3rd at 6:00am PT.

this is due to spoilers…#DoctorStrangeInTheMultiverseOfMadness pic.twitter.com/3i4oXMZdCF

— Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) April 11, 2022

Keep in mind that none of this is official; we’ve just connected disparate data points on the internet, but May 2nd/3rd as the date when the review embargo will lift makes sense. This all lines up considering all the information that is available.

NEW: Disney will be giving #DoctorStrange the STAR WARS and ENDGAME treatment. No one sees the full film until 5/2. Reactions will follow the premiere. Reviews to drop the next morning. This is due to spoilers & keeping the surprises hidden till as close to release as possible pic.twitter.com/i1EETLiVhb

— Erik Davis (@ErikDavis) April 11, 2022

The short turnaround follows the timing that Spider-Man: No Way Home had for review embargos in relation to the full release which is if true, is an intentional move from Disney and Marvel Studios to prevent any spoilers from leaking seeing that the sequel is very likely going to have some crazy cameo after crazy cameo.

We’ll update this post as more information becomes available.

Tagged : Doctor Strange / media / opening / Reviews