Credit: Marvel StudiosMarvel Studios has reigned supreme at the box office and among moviegoers for over a decade, and continues to do so even despite some recent flops. Even prior to the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Marvel was dominating the superhero genre with the Sony-era Spider-Man trilogy, X-Men films, and the Fantastic Four.
The collection of films leading up to Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) was belatedly dubbed the “Infinity Saga,” and is essentially what made Marvel Studios an international household name. In the wake of 2021’s Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home, there was a major focal shift in the Marvel Cinematic Universe towards the multiverse and its impact on the MCU. Fans began to speculate over how incorporating different versions of their favorite characters might happen in the coming years. 2022’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness further expanded this by including characters from the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and even live-action versions of Marvel’s What If? characters. Recently, however, there has been another multiversal link, confirmed by none other than actor Bruce Campbell.
Known for his role as Ash Williams in the Sam Raimi-directed horror series Evil Dead, Campbell makes a cameo appearance in Raimi’s Multiverse of Madness as a pizza vendor who ends up losing a fight to his own hand in the alternate universe that Doctor Strange and America Chavez travel to. Raimi and Campbell have worked on a number of other projects together, including the early 2000s Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire.
Maguire made his return as Spider-Man in No Way Home, confirming his status within the MCU, but some wondered if the character Bruce Campbell played in Multiverse of Madness had any connections to the characters he played in Maguire’s Spider-Man universe. At the time, his cameo was more of just an easter egg for fans, but the actor has recently spoken out about it having a greater purpose within the MCU.
In an interview with comicbook.com, Campbell spoke about his cameo and its significance in the MCU multiverse. Campbell seemingly confirmed that his character in the Spider-Man movies as well as Multiverse of Madness are in fact the same saying, “The cameos are like, in the Spider-Man movies — if you know anything about the multiverse, you know now, retroactively, I’m in the multiverse now because of Doctor Strange. I’m not a pizza vendor, OK? That would be a massive mistake to think I’m just a pizza vendor, or an usher, or a ring announcer, or a maître d’. It’s called the multiverse, my friend. So, yes, he is the same character, but we don’t know who he really is. It has not been revealed yet. I just got off the phone with the guys at Marvel, and we’re getting close to finding out.”
It is possible that Campbell is simply being a bit sarcastic with his reply. He implies that all his cameo characters are in fact the same person with a possibly important identity that has yet to be figured out by the people at Marvel Studios. On the other hand, if the character is the same as the Raimi trilogy of Spider-Men films, it could mean that the X-Men, including Charles Xavier, exist in the Maguire Spider-Man universe as well. It’s an interesting theory that takes the MCU connections back further than 2008’s Iron Man, but, as several responses have already pointed out, it doesn’t seem likely.
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