While Disney recently shifted its entire release calendar back – including the last remaining 2020 Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Black Widow – that doesn’t mean they’re hitting pause on production. The Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings quietly resumed production in Australia recently, and now it sounds like Doctor Strange 2 filming will begin by the end of the year.

Star Benedict Cumberbatch revealed in an interview with WatchTime (via Fandom) that he’s currently in pre-production on the sequel, officially titled Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and that filming is expected to begin in either “late October or early November.” That’s extremely soon!

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Image via Marvel Studios

Indeed, the film had originally been expected to start shooting early this year, but those plans were halted because of the COVID-19 shutdown. We still don’t know too much about the story of Doctor Strange 2, but we do know that Elizabeth Olsen is expected to co-star in the film as Scarlet Witch, and that the film will tie directly into the events of the Marvel Studios Disney+ series WandaVision which premieres later this year on the streaming service.

Scott Derrickson, who directed the first Doctor Strange, had originally been onboard to return to direct the sequel, but he exited the project over creative differences in January 2020. Less than a month later, however, iconic filmmaker Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) signed on to take over as director, with Michael Waldron (who’s writing on the upcoming Disney+ series Loki) rewriting the existing script.

No further casting has been announced so it’ll be interesting to see who else joins the project, but if filming does indeed begin within the next month, expect that kind of news to hit very soon.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is slated for release on March 25, 2022. For a complete list of upcoming Marvel movies that are currently in the works, click here.