Director Sam Raimi said he regretted not giving Rachel McAdams a bigger part in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, calling her “underutilized” and saying the experience pushed him to seek another project built around her.
Raimi made that reunion happen with Send Help, an R-rated survival thriller released by 20th Century Studios, where McAdams plays an office worker stranded on an island opposite Dylan O’Brien. The film opened No. 1 domestically with about $20 million, according to box-office reporting published Sunday, giving Raimi a commercial jolt after a stretch dominated by franchise work.
In interviews tied to the new release, Raimi pointed to a late-added sequence from “Multiverse of Madness” as the moment he realized McAdams could carry a full-blooded set piece. He recalled asking her to jump into a reshoot-built “ghost attack” scene and expecting resistance; instead, he said she immediately wanted to know how to play it. Raimi said her commitment sold the effects-heavy moment and convinced him he needed to put her at the center of a movie again.
McAdams has framed the Marvel role as a limited sample of what a Raimi part can demand. She told Entertainment Weekly that the “Doctor Strange” job felt like “just a taste,” adding, “I wanted more.” Still, she has also defended what the film did give her character, praising the simplicity of Michael Waldron’s farewell scene for Dr. Christine Palmer.
The exchange highlights a recurring tension inside Marvel Studios projects: ensemble plotting leaves limited room for supporting players, even when the director wants to linger. For Raimi, “Send Help” offered the correction he says he owed McAdams—built for performance, not cameos, with the camera staying close while the power balance shifts and the island gets meaner.
