title: Premier League

text: In the 2015–16 season, the top four was breached by a non-Big Six side for the first time since Everton in 2005. Leicester City were the surprise winners of the league, qualifying for the Champions League as a result.


title: Premier League

text: Off the pitch, the "Big Six" wield significant financial power and influence, with these clubs arguing that they should be entitled to a greater share of revenue due to the greater stature of their clubs globally and the attractive football they aim to play. Objectors argue that the egalitarian revenue structure in the Premier League helps to maintain a competitive league which is vital for its future success. The 2016–17 Deloitte Football Money League report showed the financial disparity between the "Big Six" and the rest of the division. All of the "Big Six" had revenues greater than €350 million, with Manchester United having the largest revenue in the league at €676.3 million. Leicester City was the closest club to the "Big Six" in terms of revenue, recording a figure of €271.1 million for that season – helped by participation in the Champions League. The eighth-largest revenue generator, West Ham – who did not play in European competition – had revenues of €213.3 million, nearly half of those of the club with the fifth-largest revenue, Liverpool (€424.2 million). A substantial part of the clubs' revenue by then came from television broadcast deals, with the biggest clubs each taking from around £150 million to nearly £200 million in the 2016–17 season from such deals. In Deloitte's 2019 report, all the "Big Six" were in the top ten of the world's richest clubs.


title: Premier League

text: Project Big Picture was announced in October 2020 that described a plan to reunite the top Premier League clubs with the English Football League, proposed by leading Premier League clubs Manchester United and Liverpool. It has been criticised by the Premier League leadership and the UK government's Department of Culture, Media and Sport.


title: Premier League

text: On 26 April 2021, play was stopped during a match between Leicester City and Crystal Palace to allow players Wesley Fofana and Cheikhou Kouyaté to break Ramadan fast. It is believed to be the first time in Premier League history that a game was paused to allow Muslim players to eat and drink after the sun had set in accordance with the rules of the faith.


title: Premier League

text: The 2022–23 season will be the first to take a six-week break between November and December 2022 to allow for the first winter World Cup, with a return for the Boxing Day fixtures. The Premier League players decided to take the knee only at some selected "significant moments", instead of the routine before matches. However, they assured to "remain resolutely committed to eradicate racial prejudice".


title: Premier League

text: The Football Association Premier League Ltd (FAPL) is operated as a corporation and is owned by the 20 member clubs. Each club is a shareholder, with one vote each on issues such as rule changes and contracts. The clubs elect a chairman, chief executive, and board of directors to oversee the daily operations of the league. The Football Association is not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the Premier League, but has veto power as a special shareholder during the election of the chairman and chief executive and when new rules are adopted by the league.


title: Premier League

text: The current chief executive is Richard Masters, who was appointed in December 2019. The chair is due to be Alison Brittain, who will take over the role in early 2023.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League sends representatives to UEFA's European Club Association, the number of clubs and the clubs themselves chosen according to UEFA coefficients. For the 2012–13 season the Premier League has 10 representatives in the Association: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. The European Club Association is responsible for electing three members to UEFA's Club Competitions Committee, which is involved in the operations of UEFA competitions such as the Champions League and UEFA Europa League.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League has faced criticism of its governance due to an alleged lack of transparency and accountability.


title: Premier League

text: Following the Premier League's blocking of the attempted takeover of Newcastle United by a PIF-backed consortium through the league's Owners' and Directors' test, many MPs, Newcastle United fans and related parties to the deal denounced the Premier League for its perceived lack of transparency and accountability throughout the process. On 6 July 2021, consortium member Amanda Staveley of PCP Capital Partners said that "fans surely deserve absolute transparency from the regulators across all their processes – to best ensure that they act responsibly. They (the Premier League) are performing a function like that of a government regulator – but without the same systems for accountability."


title: Premier League

text: On 22 July 2021, Tracey Crouch MP – chair of the fan-led review into the UK's football governance – announced in the review's interim findings that the Premier League had "lost the trust and confidence" of fans. The review also recommended that a new independent regulator be created to oversee matters such as club takeovers.


title: Premier League

text: Premier League chief executive Richard Masters had earlier spoken out against the implementation of an independent regulator, saying in May 2021, "I don't think that the independent regulator is the answer to the question. I would defend the Premier League's role as regulator of its clubs over the past 30 years."


title: Premier League

text: There are 20 clubs in the Premier League. During the course of a season (from August to May) each club plays the others twice (a double round-robin system), once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents, for 38 games. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, then goal difference, and then goals scored. If still equal, teams are deemed to occupy the same position. If there is a tie for the championship, for relegation, or for qualification to other competitions, the head-to-head record between the tied teams is taken into consideration (points scored in the matches between the teams, followed by away goals in those matches.) If two teams are still tied, a play-off match at a neutral venue decides rank.


title: Premier League

text: A system of promotion and relegation exists between the Premier League and the EFL Championship. The three lowest placed teams in the Premier League are relegated to the Championship, and the top two teams from the Championship promoted to the Premier League, with an additional team promoted after a series of play-offs involving the third, fourth, fifth and sixth placed clubs. The number of clubs was reduced from 22 to 20 in 1995, when four teams were relegated from the league and only two teams promoted. The top flight had only been expanded to 22 teams at the start of the 1991–92 season – the year prior to the formation of the Premier League.


title: Premier League

text: On 8 June 2006, FIFA requested that all major European leagues, including Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga, be reduced to 18 teams by the start of the 2007–08 season. The Premier League responded by announcing their intention to resist such a reduction. Ultimately, the 2007–08 season kicked off again with 20 teams.


title: Premier League

text: Fifty clubs have played in the Premier League from its inception in 1992, up to and including the 2022–23 season.


title: Premier League

text: In 2011, after Swansea City gained promotion, a Welsh club participated in the Premier League for the first time. The first Premier League match to be played outside England was Swansea City's home match at the Liberty Stadium against Wigan Athletic on 20 August 2011. The number of Welsh clubs in the Premier League increased to two in 2013–14, as Cardiff City gained promotion, but they were relegated after their maiden season. Cardiff were promoted again in 2017–18 but the number of Welsh clubs remained the same for the 2018–19 Premier League season, as Swansea City had been relegated from the Premier League in 2017–18. Following Cardiff City's relegation after the 2018–19 season, there are currently no Welsh clubs participating in the Premier League.


title: Premier League

text: Because they are members of the Football Association of Wales (FAW), the question of whether clubs like Swansea should represent England or Wales in European competitions has caused long-running discussions in UEFA. Swansea took one of England's three available places in the Europa League in 2013–14 by winning the League Cup in 2012–13. The right of Welsh clubs to take up such English places was in doubt until UEFA clarified the matter in March 2012, allowing them to participate.


title: Premier League

text: Participation in the Premier League by some Scottish or Irish clubs has sometimes been discussed, but without result. The idea came closest to reality in 1998, when Wimbledon received Premier League approval to relocate to Dublin, Ireland, but the move was blocked by the Football Association of Ireland. Additionally, the media occasionally discusses the idea that Scotland's two biggest teams, Celtic and Rangers, should or will take part in the Premier League, but nothing has come of these discussions.


title: Premier League

text: The top four teams in the Premier League qualify automatically for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League group stage. The winners of the Champions League and UEFA Europa League may earn an additional qualification for the subsequent season's Champions League group stage if they are not in the top four. If this means six Premier League teams qualify, then the fourth-placed team in the Premier League instead plays in the Europa League, as any single nation is limited to a maximum of five teams in the Champions League.


title: Premier League

text: The fifth-placed team in the Premier League, as well as the winner of the FA Cup, qualifies for the subsequent season's Europa League group stage, but if the winner of the FA Cup also finished in the top five places in the Premier League or has won one of UEFA's major tournaments, then this place reverts to the team that finished sixth. The winner of the EFL Cup qualifies for the subsequent season's Europa conference league, but if the winner already qualified for a UEFA competition via their performance in another competition, then this place reverts to the team that finished sixth in the Premier League, or seventh if the FA Cup result already caused the sixth-placed team to qualify.


title: Premier League

text: The number of places allocated to English clubs in UEFA competitions is dependent upon the position a country holds in the UEFA country coefficients, which are calculated based upon the performance of teams in UEFA competitions in the previous five years. Currently the ranking of England (and "de facto" the Premier League) is second, behind Spain.


title: Premier League

text: An exception to the usual European qualification system happened in 2005, after Liverpool won the Champions League the season before, but did not finish in a Champions League qualification place in the Premier League. UEFA gave special dispensation for Liverpool to enter the Champions League, giving England five qualifiers. UEFA subsequently ruled that the defending champions qualify for the competition the following year regardless of their domestic league placing. However, for those leagues with four entrants in the Champions League, this meant that if the Champions League winner finished outside the top four in its domestic league, it would qualify at the expense of the fourth-placed team in the league. At that time, no association could have more than four entrants in the Champions League. This occurred in 2012, when Chelsea – who had won the Champions League that summer, but finished sixth in the league – qualified for the Champions League in place of Tottenham Hotspur, who went into the Europa League.


title: Premier League

text: From 2015–16, the Europa League winners qualify for the Champions League, increasing the maximum number of participants per country to five. This took effect in England in 2016–17, when Manchester United finished sixth in the Premier League and won the Europa League, giving England five Champions League entrants for 2017–18. In these instances, any Europa League berth vacated will not be handed down to the next-best Premier League finisher outside a qualifying place and so the association's Europa League entrants for the following season will be reduced. If it happens that both Champions League and Europa League winners are of the same association and both finish outside the top four, then the fourth-placed team will be transferred to the Europa League.


title: Premier League

text: Between the 1992–93 and the 2021–22 seasons, Premier League clubs won the UEFA Champions League six times (and had eight runners-up), behind Spain's La Liga with twelve wins, and ahead of, among others, Italy's Serie A with five wins and Germany's Bundesliga with four wins. The FIFA Club World Cup (originally called the FIFA Club World Championship) has been won three times by a Premier League club (Manchester United in 2008, Liverpool in 2019, and Chelsea in 2021), with two runners-up (Liverpool in 2005 and Chelsea in 2012), behind Spain's La Liga with seven wins and Brazil's Brasileirão with four wins.


title: Premier League

text: The league changed its name from the "FA Premier League" to simply the "Premier League" in 2007. From 1993 to 2016, the Premier League had title sponsorship rights sold to two companies, which were Carling brewery and Barclays Bank PLC; Barclays was the most recent title sponsor, having sponsored the Premier League from 2001 until 2016 (until 2004, the title sponsorship was held through its Barclaycard brand before shifting to its main banking brand in 2004).


title: Premier League

text: Barclays' deal with the Premier League expired at the end of the 2015–16 season. The FA announced on 4 June 2015 that it would not pursue any further title sponsorship deals for the Premier League, arguing that they wanted to build a "clean" brand for the competition more in line with those of major U.S. sports leagues.


title: Premier League

text: As well as sponsorship for the league itself, the Premier League has a number of official partners and suppliers. The official ball supplier for the league is Nike who have had the contract since the 2000–01 season when they took over from Mitre. Under its "Merlin" brand, Topps held the licence to produce collectables for the Premier League between 1994 and 2019 including stickers (for their sticker album) and trading cards. Launched in the 2007–08 season, Topps’ Match Attax, the official Premier League trading card game, is the best selling boys collectable in the UK, and is also the biggest selling sports trading card game in the world. In October 2018, Panini were awarded the licence to produce collectables from the 2019–20 season. The chocolate company Cadbury has been the official snack partner of the Premier League since 2017, and sponsored the Golden Boot, Golden Glove and Playmaker of the Season awards from the 2017–18 season to 2019–20 season. The Coca-Cola Company (under its Coca-Cola Zero Sugar product line) sponsored these awards during the 2020–21 season with Castrol being the current sponsor as of the 2021–22 season.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League has the highest revenue of any association football league in the world, with total club revenues of €2.48 billion in 2009–10. In 2013–14, due to improved television revenues and cost controls, the Premier League clubs collectively made a net profit in excess of £78 million, exceeding all other football leagues. In 2010 the Premier League was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category for its outstanding contribution to international trade and the value it brings to English football and the United Kingdom's broadcasting industry.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League includes some of the richest football clubs in the world. Deloitte's "Football Money League" listed seven Premier League clubs in the top 20 for the 2009–10 season, and all 20 clubs were in the top 40 globally by the end of the 2013–14 season, largely as a result of increased broadcasting revenue. In 2019, the league generated around £3.1 billion per year in domestic and international television rights.


title: Premier League

text: Premier League clubs agreed in principle in December 2012, to radical new cost controls. The two proposals consist of a break-even rule and a cap on the amount clubs can increase their wage bill by each season. With the new television deals on the horizon, momentum has been growing to find ways of preventing the majority of the cash going straight to players and agents.


title: Premier League

text: Central payments for the 2016–17 season amounted to £2,398,515,773 across the 20 clubs, with each team receiving a flat participation fee of £35,301,989 and additional payments for TV broadcasts (£1,016,690 for general UK rights to match highlights, £1,136,083 for each live UK broadcast of their games and £39,090,596 for all overseas rights), commercial rights (a flat fee of £4,759,404) and a notional measure of "merit" which was based upon final league position. The merit component was a nominal sum of £1,941,609 multiplied by each finishing place, counted from the foot of the table (e.g., Burnley finished 16th in May 2017, five places counting upwards, and received 5 × £1,941,609 = £9,708,045 merit payment).


title: Premier League

text: Since its split with the Football League, established clubs in the Premier League have a funding disparity from counterparts in lower leagues. Revenue from television rights between the leagues has played a part in this.


title: Premier League

text: Promoted teams have found it difficult to avoid relegation in their first Premier League season. One Premier League newcomer has been relegated back to the Football League every season, save the 2001–02, 2011–12 and 2017–18 seasons. In the 1997–98 season, all three promoted clubs were relegated by the season's end.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League distributes a portion of its television revenue as "parachute payments" to relegated clubs for adjustment to television revenue loss. The average Premier League team receives £41 million while the average Championship club receives £2 million. Starting with the 2013–14 season, these payments are in excess of £60 million over four seasons. Critics maintain that the payments widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premier League and those that have not, leading to the common occurrence of teams "bouncing back" soon after their relegation.


title: Premier League

text: Clubs which have failed to win immediate promotion back to the Premier League have seen financial problems, in some cases administration or liquidation. Further relegations down the footballing ladder have occurred for multiple clubs unable to cope with the gap.


title: Premier League

text: Television has played a major role in the history of the Premier League. The League's decision to assign broadcasting rights to Sky in 1992 was at the time a radical decision, but one that has paid off. At the time pay television was an almost untested proposition in the UK market, as was charging fans to watch live televised football. However, a combination of Sky's strategy, the quality of Premier League football and the public's appetite for the game has seen the value of the Premier League's TV rights soar.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League sells its television rights on a collective basis. This is in contrast to some other European leagues, including La Liga, in which each club sells its rights individually, leading to a much higher share of the total income going to the top few clubs. The money is divided into three parts: half is divided equally between the clubs; one quarter is awarded on a merit basis based on final league position, the top club getting twenty times as much as the bottom club, and equal steps all the way down the table; the final quarter is paid out as facilities fees for games that are shown on television, with the top clubs generally receiving the largest shares of this. The income from overseas rights is divided equally between the twenty clubs.


title: Premier League

text: Not all Premier League matches are televised in the United Kingdom, as the league upholds the long-standing prohibition on telecasts of any association football match (domestic or otherwise) that kicks off between 2:45 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. on Saturday matchdays.


title: Premier League

text: The first Sky television rights agreement was worth £304 million over five seasons. The next contract, negotiated to start from the 1997–98 season, rose to £670 million over four seasons. The third contract was a £1.024 billion deal with BSkyB for the three seasons from 2001 to 2002 to 2003–04. The league brought in £320 million from the sale of its international rights for the three-year period from 2004 to 2005 to 2006–07. It sold the rights itself on a territory-by-territory basis. Sky's monopoly was broken from August 2006 when Setanta Sports was awarded rights to show two out of the six packages of matches available. This occurred following an insistence by the European Commission that exclusive rights should not be sold to one television company. Sky and Setanta paid £1.7 billion, a two-thirds increase which took many commentators by surprise as it had been widely assumed that the value of the rights had levelled off following many years of rapid growth. Setanta also hold rights to a live 3 pm match solely for Irish viewers. The BBC retained the rights to show highlights for the same three seasons (on "Match of the Day") for £171.6 million, a 63 per cent increase on the £105 million it paid for the previous three-year period. Sky and BT agreed to jointly pay £84.3 million for delayed television rights to 242 games (that is the right to broadcast them in full on television and over the internet) in most cases for a period of 50 hours after 10 pm on matchday. Overseas television rights fetched £625 million, nearly double the previous contract. The total raised from those deals was more than £2.7 billion, giving Premier League clubs an average media income from league games of around £40 million-a-year from 2007 to 2010.


title: Premier League

text: The TV rights agreement between the Premier League and Sky faced accusations of being a cartel, and a number of court cases arose as a result. An investigation by the Office of Fair Trading in 2002 found BSkyB to be dominant within the pay TV sports market, but concluded that there were insufficient grounds for the claim that BSkyB had abused its dominant position. In July 1999 the Premier League's method of selling rights collectively for all member clubs was investigated by the UK Restrictive Practices Court, which concluded that the agreement was not contrary to the public interest.


title: Premier League

text: The BBC's highlights package on Saturday and Sunday nights, as well as other evenings when fixtures justify, ran until 2016. Television rights alone for the period 2010 to 2013 were purchased for £1.782 billion. On 22 June 2009, due to troubles encountered by Setanta Sports after it failed to meet a final deadline over a £30 million payment to the Premier League, ESPN was awarded two packages of UK rights containing 46 matches that were available for the 2009–10 season as well as a package of 23 matches per season from 2010 to 2011 to 2012–13. On 13 June 2012, the Premier League announced that BT had been awarded 38 games a season for the 2013–14, 2014–15 and 2015–16 seasons at £246 million-a-year. The remaining 116 games were retained by Sky, which paid £760 million-a-year. The total domestic rights raised £3.018 billion, an increase of 70.2% over the 2010–11 to 2012–13 rights. The value of the licensing deal rose by another 70.2% in 2015, when Sky and BT paid £5.136 billion to renew their contracts with the Premier League for another three years up to the 2018–19 season.


title: Premier League

text: A new rights cycle began in the 2019–20 season, with the domestic package increasing to 200 matches overall; in February 2018, BT were awarded the package of 32 lunchtime fixtures on Saturdays, while Sky was awarded four of the seven packages, covering the majority of weekend fixtures (including eight new prime time fixtures on Saturdays), as well as Monday and Friday matches. Two remaining packages of 20 fixtures each were to be sold at a later date, including three rounds of mid-week fixtures and a bank holiday round. As Sky already owned the maximum number of matches it could hold without breaching a 148-match cap, it was speculated that at least one of the new packages could go to a new entrant, such as a streaming service. The five packages sold to BT and Sky were valued at £4.464 billion. In June 2018, it was announced that Amazon Prime Video and BT had acquired the remaining two packages; Amazon acquired rights to 20 matches per-season, covering a mid-week round in December, and all Boxing Day fixtures. The Amazon telecasts are produced in association with Sunset + Vine and BT Sport.


title: Premier League

text: With the resumption of play in the 2019–20 Premier League due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the Premier League announced that all remaining matches would be carried on British television, split primarily across Sky, BT, and Amazon. A large number of these matches were also scheduled for free-to-air broadcasts, with Sky airing 25 on Pick, Amazon streaming its four matches on Twitch, and the BBC – for the first time in league history – carrying four live matches.


title: Premier League

text: As matches would continue to be played without spectators upon the start of the 2020–21 Premier League, its clubs voted on 8 September to continue broadcasting all matches through at least September (with the BBC and Amazon each holding one additional match), and "appropriate arrangements" being made for October. It was later announced that matches not selected for broadcast would be carried on pay-per-view via BT Sport Box Office and Sky Box Office at a cost of £14.95 per-match. The PPV scheme was poorly received; the Football Supporters' Federation felt that the price was too high, and there were concerns that it could encourage piracy. There were calls from supporters to boycott the pay-per-views, and make donations to support charitable causes instead (with Newcastle's "Charity Not PPV" campaign raising £20,000 for a local food bank, and Arsenal fans raising £34,000 for Islington Giving). On 13 November, amid the reintroduction of measures across the UK, the Premier League officially announced that the non-televised matches would be assigned to its main broadcast partners, and again including additional matches for the BBC and Amazon Prime.


title: Premier League

text: In August 2016, it was announced the BBC would be creating a new magazine-style show for the Premier League entitled "The Premier League Show".


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people. The Premier League's production arm, Premier League Productions, is operated by IMG Productions and produces content for its international television partners.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League is the most widely distributed sports programme in Asia. In Australia, Optus telecommunications holds exclusive rights to the Premier League, providing live broadcasts and online access (Fox Sports formerly held rights). In India, the matches are broadcast live on STAR Sports. In China, the broadcast rights were awarded to Super Sports in a six-year agreement that began in the 2013–14 season. As of the 2019–20 season, Canadian broadcast rights to the Premier League are owned by DAZN, after having been jointly owned by Sportsnet and TSN from 2013 to 2014.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League is broadcast in the United States by NBC Sports, a division of Sky parent Comcast. Acquiring the rights to the Premier League in 2013 (replacing Fox Soccer and ESPN), NBC Sports has been widely praised for its coverage. NBC Sports reached a six-year extension with the Premier League in 2015 to broadcast the league until the end of the 2021–22 season in a deal valued at $1 billion (£640 million). In November 2021, NBC reached another six-year extension through 2028 in a deal valued at $2.76 billion (£2 billion).


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League is broadcast by SuperSport across sub-Saharan Africa. Broadcasters to continental Europe until 2025 include Canal+ for France, Sky Sport for Germany and Austria, Match TV for Russia, Sky Sport for Italy, Eleven Sports for Portugal, DAZN for Spain, beIN Sports to Turkey, Digi Sport for Romania and NENT to Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark and Norway), Poland and the Netherlands. In South America, ESPN covers much of the continent, with coverage in Brazil shared between ESPN Brasil and Fox Sports. SKY México broadcasts the league in Central America.


title: Premier League

text: As of the 2017–18 season, Premier League football has been played in 58 stadiums since the formation of the division. The Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and the subsequent Taylor Report saw a recommendation that standing terraces should be abolished. As a result, all stadiums in the Premier League are all-seater. Since the formation of the Premier League, football grounds in England have seen constant improvements to capacity and facilities, with some clubs moving to new-build stadiums. Nine stadiums that have seen Premier League football have now been demolished. The stadiums for the 2017–18 season show a large disparity in capacity. For example, Wembley Stadium, the temporary home of Tottenham Hotspur, has a capacity of 90,000 while Dean Court, the home of AFC Bournemouth, has a capacity of 11,360. The combined total capacity of the Premier League in the 2017–18 season is 806,033 with an average capacity of 40,302.


title: Premier League

text: Stadium attendances are a significant source of regular income for Premier League clubs. For the 2016–17 season, average attendances across the league clubs were 35,838 for Premier League matches with an aggregate attendance of 13,618,596. This represents an increase of 14,712 from the average attendance of 21,126 recorded in the Premier League's first season (1992–93). However, during the 1992–93 season, the capacities of most stadiums were reduced as clubs replaced terraces with seats in order to meet the Taylor Report's 1994–95 deadline for all-seater stadiums. The Premier League's record average attendance of 36,144 was set during the 2007–08 season. This record was then beaten in the 2013–14 season recording an average attendance of 36,695 with an attendance of just under 14 million, the highest average in England's top flight since 1950.


title: Premier League

text: Managers in the Premier League are involved in the day-to-day running of the team, including the training, team selection and player acquisition. Their influence varies from club-to-club and is related to the ownership of the club and the relationship of the manager with fans. Managers are required to have a UEFA Pro Licence which is the final coaching qualification available, and follows the completion of the UEFA 'B' and 'A' Licences. The UEFA Pro Licence is required by every person who wishes to manage a club in the Premier League on a permanent basis ("i.e.", more than 12 weeks, the amount of time an unqualified caretaker manager is allowed to take control). Caretaker appointments are managers that fill the gap between a managerial departure and a new appointment. Several caretaker managers have gone on to secure a permanent managerial post after performing well as a caretaker, including Paul Hart at Portsmouth , David Pleat at Tottenham Hotspur and Ole Gunnar Solskjær at Manchester United.


title: Premier League

text: Arsène Wenger is the longest-serving manager, having been in charge of Arsenal in the Premier League from 1996 to his departure at the conclusion of the 2017–18 season, and holds the record for most matches managed in the Premier League with 828, all with Arsenal. He broke the record set by Alex Ferguson, who had managed 810 matches with Manchester United from the Premier League's inception to his retirement at the end of the 2012–13 season. Ferguson was in charge of Manchester United from November 1986 until his retirement at the end of the 2012–13 season, meaning he was manager for the last five years of the old Football League First Division and all of the first 21 seasons of the Premier League.


title: Premier League

text: There have been several studies into the reasoning behind, and effects of, managerial sackings. Most famously, Professor Sue Bridgewater of the University of Liverpool and Dr. Bas ter Weel of the University of Amsterdam, performed two separate studies which helped to explain the statistics behind managerial sackings. Bridgewater's study found clubs generally sack their managers upon dropping below an average of one point per match.


title: Premier League

text: Player transfers may only take place within transfer windows set by the Football Association. The two transfer windows run from the last day of the season to 31 August and from 31 December to 31 January. Player registrations cannot be exchanged outside these windows except under specific licence from the FA, usually on an emergency basis. As of the 2010–11 season, the Premier League introduced new rules mandating that each club must register a maximum 25-man squad of players aged over 21, with the squad list only allowed to be changed in transfer windows or in exceptional circumstances. This was to enable the "home grown" rule to be enacted, whereby the Premier League would also from 2010 require at least eight members of the named 25-man squad to be "home-grown players".


title: Premier League

text: At the inception of the Premier League in 1992–93, just 11 players named in the starting line-ups for the first round of matches hailed from outside of the United Kingdom or Ireland. By 2000–01, the number of foreign players participating in the Premier League was 36% of the total. In the 2004–05 season, the figure had increased to 45%. On 26 December 1999, Chelsea became the first Premier League side to field an entirely foreign starting line-up, and on 14 February 2005, Arsenal were the first to name a completely foreign 16-man squad for a match. By 2009, under 40% of the players in the Premier League were English. By February 2020, 117 different nationalities had played in the Premier League, and 101 nationalities had scored in the competition.


title: Premier League

text: In 1999, in response to concerns that clubs were increasingly passing over young English players in favour of foreign players, the Home Office tightened its rules for granting work permits to players from countries outside of the European Union. A non-EU player applying for the permit must have played for his country in at least 75 per cent of its competitive 'A' team matches for which he was available for selection during the previous two years, and his country must have averaged at least 70th place in the official FIFA world rankings over the previous two years. If a player does not meet those criteria, the club wishing to sign him may appeal.


title: Premier League

text: Following the implementation of Brexit in January 2021, new regulations were introduced which require all foreign players to obtain a Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) in order to play football in the United Kingdom, regardless of EU status.


title: Premier League

text: 43% of players in the Premier League in 2021 were Black, as were 34% of players across the next three divisions that make up the top 92 clubs in the English football.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League Golden Boot is awarded each season to the top scorer in the division. Former Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer holds the record for most Premier League goals with 260. Thirty-three players have reached the 100-goal mark. Since the first Premier League season in 1992–93, 23 players from 11 clubs have won or shared the top scorer title. Thierry Henry won his fourth overall scoring title by scoring 27 goals in the 2005–06 season. Andrew Cole and Alan Shearer hold the record for most goals in a season (34) – for Newcastle and Blackburn respectively. Ryan Giggs of Manchester United holds the record for scoring goals in consecutive seasons, having scored in the first 21 seasons of the league. Giggs also holds the record for the most Premier League assists, with 162.


title: Premier League

text: There is no team or individual salary cap in the Premier League. As a result of the increasingly lucrative television deals, player wages rose sharply following the formation of the Premier League, when the average player wage was £75,000 per year. In the 2018–19 season the average annual salary stood at £2.99 million.


title: Premier League

text: The total salary bill for the 20 Premier League clubs in the 2018–19 season was £1.62 billion; this compares to £1.05 billion in La Liga, £0.83 billion in Serie A, £0.72 billion in Bundesliga, and £0.54 billion in Ligue 1. The club with the highest average wage is Manchester United at £6.5 million. This is smaller than the club with the highest wage bill in Spain (Barcelona £10.5 million) and Italy (Juventus £6.7 million), but higher than in Germany (Bayern Munich £6.4 million) and France (Paris Saint-Germain £6.1 million). For the 2018–19 season, the ratio of the wages of the highest-paid team to lowest-paid in the Premier League is 6.82 to 1. This is much lower than in La Liga (19.1 to 1), Serie A (16 to 1), Bundesliga (20.5 to 1), and Ligue 1 (26.6 to 1). Because of the lower differential between team wage bills in the Premier League, it is often regarded as being more competitive than other top European leagues.


title: Premier League

text: The record transfer fee for a Premier League player has risen steadily over the lifetime of the competition. Before the start of the first Premier League season, Alan Shearer became the first British player to command a transfer fee of more than £3 million. The record has increased steadily and Philippe Coutinho is now the most expensive transfer involving a Premier League club at £106 million. The highest transfer fee paid by a Premier League club is £100 million for Jack Grealish.


title: Premier League

text: The Premier League maintains two trophies – the genuine trophy (held by the reigning champions) and a spare replica. Two trophies are held for the purpose of making the award within minutes of the title being secured, in the event that on the final day of the season two clubs are still within reach of winning the League. In the rare event that more than two clubs are vying for the title on the final day of the season, a replica won by a previous club is used.


title: Premier League

text: The current Premier League trophy was created by Royal Jewellers Garrard & Co/Asprey of London and was designed in house at Garrard & Co by Trevor Brown and Paul Marsden. It consists of a trophy with a golden crown and a malachite plinth base. The plinth weighs and the trophy weighs . The trophy and plinth are tall, wide and deep.


title: Premier League

text: Its main body is solid sterling silver and silver gilt, while its plinth is made of malachite, a semi-precious stone. The plinth has a silver band around its circumference, upon which the names of the title-winning clubs are listed. The green of the malachite represents the green field of play. The design of the trophy is based on the heraldry of Three Lions that is associated with English football. Two of the lions are found above the handles on either side of the trophy – the third is symbolised by the captain of the title-winning team as he raises the trophy, and its gold crown, above his head at the end of the season. The ribbons that drape the handles are presented in the team colours of the league champions that year. In 2004, a special gold version of the trophy was commissioned to commemorate Arsenal winning the title without a single defeat.


title: Premier League

text: In addition to the winner's trophy and the individual winner's medals awarded to players who win the title, the Premier League also issues other awards throughout the season.


title: Premier League

text: A man-of-the-match award is awarded to the player who has the greatest impact in an individual match.


title: Premier League

text: Monthly awards are also given for the Manager of the Month, Player of the Month and Goal of the Month. These are also issued annually for Manager of the Season, Player of the Season. and Goal of the Season. The Young Player of the Season award is given to the most outstanding U-23 player starting from the 2019–20 season.


title: Premier League

text: The Golden Boot award is given to the top goalscorer of every season, the Playmaker of the Season award is given to the player who makes the most assists of every season, and the Golden Glove award is given to the goalkeeper with the most clean sheets at the end of the season.


title: Premier League

text: From the 2017–18 season, players also receive a milestone award for 100 appearances and every century there after and also players who score 50 goals and multiples thereof. Each player to reach these milestones is to receive a presentation box from the Premier League containing a special medallion and a plaque commemorating their achievement.


Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a 2022 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the character Doctor Strange. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to "Doctor Strange" (2016) and the 28th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Michael Waldron, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, alongside Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Rachel McAdams. In the film, Strange protects America Chavez (Gomez), a teenager capable of traveling the multiverse, from Wanda Maximoff (Olsen).


title: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

text: "Doctor Strange" director and co-writer Scott Derrickson had plans for a sequel by October 2016. He signed to return as director in December 2018, when Cumberbatch was confirmed to return. The film's title was announced in July 2019 along with Olsen's involvement, while Jade Halley Bartlett was hired to write the film that October. Derrickson stepped down as director in January 2020, citing creative differences. Waldron and Raimi joined the following month and started over, adding elements of the horror genre that Raimi had worked with previously and making Maximoff the villain of the film, continuing her story from the series "WandaVision" (2021). Filming began in November 2020 in London but was put on hold in January 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production resumed by March 2021 and concluded in mid-April in Somerset. Shooting also occurred in Surrey and Los Angeles.


text: "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on May 2, 2022, and was released in the United States on May 6, as part of of the MCU. The film received praise for Raimi's direction, the visuals, musical score, production design, cinematography, and Cumberbatch and Olsen's performances, while criticism was mostly directed towards the writing. The film grossed $955 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 2022.


text: America Chavez and a version of Stephen Strange are chased by a demon in the space between universes while searching for the "Book of Vishanti". Strange is killed and Chavez accidentally creates a portal that transports herself and Strange's corpse to Earth-616, where that universe's version of Strange rescues Chavez from another demon with help from the Sorcerer Supreme, Wong. Chavez explains that the beings are hunting her because she has the power to travel through the multiverse.


text: Recognizing witchcraft runes, Strange consults Wanda Maximoff for help but realizes that she is responsible for the attacks. After acquiring the "Darkhold" and becoming the Scarlet Witch, Maximoff believes that controlling Chavez's powers will allow her to reunite with Billy and Tommy, the children she created during her time in Westview. When Strange refuses to surrender Chavez, Maximoff attacks Kamar-Taj, killing many sorcerers. Chavez accidentally transports herself and Strange to Earth-838, while Maximoff uses the "Darkhold" to "dreamwalk", taking control of her Earth-838 counterpart, who lives a suburban life with her own Billy and Tommy. A surviving sorceress sacrifices herself to destroy the "Darkhold" and break the dreamwalk. Enraged, Maximoff forces Wong to lead her to Mount Wundagore, the source of the "Darkhold" power, to reestablish the dreamwalk.


text: While searching for help, Strange and Chavez are apprehended by Earth-838's Sorcerer Supreme, Karl Mordo, and brought before the Illuminati, a group consisting of Mordo, Peggy Carter, Blackagar Boltagon, Maria Rambeau, Reed Richards, and Charles Xavier. They explain that through reckless use of their universe's "Darkhold" in an attempt to defeat Thanos, Earth-838's Strange triggered a universe-destroying "incursion". After defeating Thanos, the Illuminati executed their Strange to prevent him from causing more harm. Mordo believes that Earth-616's Strange is similarly dangerous, but Maximoff reestablishes her dreamwalk at Mount Wundagore and arrives in her Earth-838 counterpart's body before they can pass judgment. She brutally kills all the Illuminati except Mordo, whom Strange subdues before fleeing with Chavez. The two escape with help from the Earth-838 version of Strange's ex-fiancé, Christine Palmer, a scientist working with the Illuminati.


text: Strange, Chavez, and Palmer enter the space between universes to find the "Book of Vishanti", which is the antithesis of the "Darkhold", but Maximoff appears and destroys it. She then takes over Chavez's mind, using her powers to send the others to an incursion-destroyed universe. Strange defeats the destroyed universe's Strange, who has been corrupted by his universe's "Darkhold", and uses it to dreamwalk into the body of his deceased counterpart on Earth-616. With Wong's help, Strange saves Chavez from Maximoff as she tries to take Chavez's powers and encourages Chavez to use her abilities. She transports Maximoff to Earth-838, where she sees Billy and Tommy recoil from her in fear while crying for their real mother. Realizing the error of her ways, Maximoff relents and uses her powers to bring down Mount Wundagore, simultaneously destroying all copies of the "Darkhold" throughout the multiverse and apparently sacrificing herself in the process. Chavez returns Strange and Palmer to their respective universes.


text: Sometime later, Kamar-Taj is under repair and the surviving sorcerers, joined by Chavez, continue training. Strange develops a third eye as a result of using the "Darkhold" and dreamwalking into a corpse. In a mid-credits scene, Strange is approached by a sorceress who warns him that his actions have triggered an incursion that he must help fix. Strange follows her into the Dark Dimension.


text: The Illuminati of Earth-838 also includes Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, portraying a different version of the character that he previously played in 20th Century Fox's "X-Men" film series; Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter / Captain Carter, after voicing another version in the animated series "What If...?" (2021); Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau / Captain Marvel, an alternate version of her character from "Captain Marvel" (2019); Anson Mount as Blackagar Boltagon / Black Bolt, an alternate version of his role from Marvel's ABC television series "Inhumans" (2017); and John Krasinski as Reed Richards, a member of the Fantastic Four.


text: "Doctor Strange" (2016) co-writer C. Robert Cargill stated in April 2016 that Marvel Studios felt some initial ideas for the film from him and director Scott Derrickson highlighted too much of the "weird stuff" associated with the comic book character Doctor Strange to feature in an origin story, but told the duo to hold onto them for potential future films. Derrickson revealed in October that he had plans for a sequel, expressing his love for the character and the visual possibilities that come with him. Derrickson said the first film was "the tip of an iceberg. There's so much progress that can be made." He wanted to follow the example of "The Dark Knight" (2008) and introduce a villain in the sequel that would allow them to "go deep [and have] a more visceral experience". Star Benedict Cumberbatch had signed on for at least one more Doctor Strange film. Derrickson expressed interest in featuring the villain Nightmare, and further exploring the characters Jonathan Pangborn and Hamir after their small roles in the first film. He explained that he had been "kept in the loop" on how the "Avengers" films were using Strange due to his close relationships with Joe Russo—the co-director of "" (2018) and "" (2019)—and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. "Doctor Strange" co-writer Jon Spaihts expressed interest in seeing the character Clea appear in a sequel. In April 2017, Derrickson was reported to be returning for a sequel, beginning work after fulfilling his commitments to the television series "Locke & Key".


text: By December 2018, Derrickson had quietly finalized a deal to direct the sequel, with Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong, and Rachel McAdams reprising their respective roles of Dr. Stephen Strange, Wong, and Christine Palmer. Marvel was beginning to search for a writer, with "The Hollywood Reporter" stating that the script would be written throughout 2019 for a planned filming start in early 2020 and a potential release in May 2021. Feige and Derrickson officially announced the sequel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019, revealing the title to be "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" and confirming a release date of May 7, 2021. Derrickson wanted the sequel to be the first scary Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film and explore more of the gothic and horror elements from the comic books than the first installment did, with co-producer Richie Palmer explaining that the film would use the multiverse to explore "each definition of the word madness" and the idea that "the scariest monsters are the ones that dwell within us". Feige revealed that the Disney+ series "WandaVision" (2021) would directly set up the film, with Elizabeth Olsen reprising her role of Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch from the series. Additionally, the concept of the multiverse was introduced to the MCU in the first season of "Loki" (2021), and explored further in the film "" (2021), which is set before "Multiverse of Madness" and sees Cumberbatch reprising his role as Strange. After "Loki" first-season finale was released, Tom Hiddleston was reported to be reprising his role as Loki in "Multiverse of Madness", but ultimately did not appear.


text: Jade Halley Bartlett, an "up-and-coming screenwriter", was hired to write the sequel's screenplay in October 2019. In December, Feige described the multiverse as "the next step in the evolution of the MCU", and said this film would "crack it wide open" in a way that would have repercussions for the Disney+ series and the next films in Marvel Studios' slate. Later in the month, he clarified that the sequel would not be a horror film, as some reports had described it following the Comic-Con announcement, but it would be a "big MCU film with scary sequences". Feige compared these sequences to the films "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984), "Gremlins" (1984), and "Poltergeist" (1982), and said Derrickson was good at being "legitimately scary" due to his background making horror films. Feige also revealed that the film would introduce several surprising new characters to the MCU, including one that Marvel Studios had been looking for a way to use in an MCU film for some time; this was later revealed to be America Chavez, who was included because her powers are related to the multiverse. Chavez's co-creator Joe Casey was not paid for the character's appearance in the film after he rejected a compensation offer from Marvel Comics that he described as a "pittance".


text: In January 2020, Marvel Studios and Derrickson announced that he would no longer direct the film due to creative differences. In separate statements, they both said they were thankful for their collaboration so far and Derrickson would remain an executive producer on the film. This was not expected to delay filming, which was set for May 2020. Cargill explained that he and Derrickson conceived a story that went in a different direction from what Marvel wanted, and the pair had not yet written a draft of the screenplay so the final film would not be derivative of their work. Derrickson said leaving the film was a difficult decision, but he did not want to compromise on a film that was different from what he wanted to make. His choice to leave was made easier by the fact that he was able to immediately begin work on "The Black Phone" (2022), another film he wanted to make. Cumberbatch was not consulted regarding the director change and said he was sad to hear about it, but he respected the decision and how it was handled. Some reports suggested that Derrickson left the film because he wanted to make a "no-holds-barred weird, gnarly, scary movie" similar to A24's films "The Witch" (2015) or "Hereditary" (2018), and Marvel Studios did not want to go in that direction, but Feige denied this and said the studio loved that idea. He explained that it was their intention for the film to serve as a guide into a "much creepier side" of the MCU, even after Derrickson's departure, and they wanted to explore the "mind-bending frightening side" of the multiverse.


text: Sam Raimi entered negotiations to take over as director by early February. At that time, Chiwetel Ejiofor was expected to reprise his role as Karl Mordo, McAdams was no longer expected to appear, and Michael Waldron was hired to rewrite the film's script after serving as the head writer of "Loki" first season. Raimi signed on to direct the film a few weeks later. He had been reluctant to direct another Marvel superhero film after the mixed critical reaction to "Spider-Man 3" (2007), feeling that he needed a break from that genre, but he accepted the job because of the challenge of getting the film into production right away and because he was a fan of the Doctor Strange character and Derrickson's work on the first film. Raimi was curious how making big-budgeted films had changed since his prior film, "Oz the Great and Powerful" (2013), and he also had to familiarize himself with the existing MCU storylines and characters for the film. Waldron had three weeks to write a new script draft based on the work done by Derrickson and Bartlett. He said this was "almost impossible", and Raimi felt "very rushed and panicked" trying to meet the May 2020 production start date. The COVID-19 pandemic began to impact film productions during those first three weeks, and pre-production started taking place remotely. Filming was initially still on track to begin in May 2020, until Disney shifted much of their Phase Four slate of films due to the pandemic, moving "Multiverse of Madness" release date to November 5, 2021. Raimi was relieved by this delay, which gave him and Waldron the opportunity to start writing the script from scratch in a reasonable time, and make the film their own.


text: Waldron watched the director's "Spider-Man" films (2002–2007) so he could identify Raimi's strengths and write toward them. He described "Multiverse of Madness" as Raimi's return to "big superhero movies", and said it would have every aspect of a Sam Raimi film, including a "slightly scarier direction" which he felt Raimi had a strong track record with. Palmer said Waldron's work introducing the multiverse in "Loki" allowed Marvel Studios to "jump into telling a good story" without having to re-explain those ideas for the audience, and helped bring "a lot of heart to [the] sci-fi concepts". Waldron also used his experience from writing the series "Rick and Morty", which helped him "introduce these big sci-fi concepts in ways that were digestible, palatable to the audience and without getting them bogged down in the boring details". Rather than just expanding the stakes of the film, Waldron saw the multiverse as the "emotional heart" of the story that could be used in personal ways, such as using "what ifs" and alternate versions of characters to reflect on the film's protagonists, and exploring the characters' right or wrong choices through their alternate versions. Waldron watched "Doctor Strange" several times, saying he became a "student" of that film, to understand Strange's story in the original. He also looked at how the character had developed through his other MCU appearances, and Raimi praised how Waldron's imagination and knowledge of Marvel history contributed to the script. The creative team saw early production work for the animated series "What If...?" to learn how Strange was portrayed in that series.


text: Waldron described Maximoff as "the biggest best bullet" that they had, and said she was destined to become a villain in the MCU, as she did in the comics, especially after the end of "WandaVision" revealed "to her that the family she's built is not real. Then she gets the "Darkhold"... and learns that there is a real version of her children out there. And if you've got the Book of the Damned whispering in your ear long enough that your kids are out there and you could go get 'em, maybe that can push you to do some terrible things." If she became a villain at the end of the film, he knew another project would get to have the "fun" of using her as a villain. He also wanted to avoid the film getting "overstuffed" by adding a different multiverse-related villain such as Kang the Conqueror, and felt that this would create a "watered-down version of Wanda [who] wouldn't be the protagonist, and she wouldn't really be the antagonist". Olsen was hesitant about playing the villain after believing that she would just be "in an ensemble thing", but she came to feel that the combination of "WandaVision" and "Multiverse of Madness" gave her an opportunity to create a sympathetic character in the series who the audience would therefore have conflicted feelings about when seeing the film. Waldron worked closely with Olsen and "WandaVision" head writer Jac Schaeffer to ensure Maximoff's story was a satisfying continuation of the series, while Raimi also studied the series despite not fully seeing it, particularly key moments that directly impacted their plans for the film, to make sure the film maintained "a proper through line and character-growth dynamic" for her character. It was important to Olsen that the film not repeat what was done in "WandaVision" and instead be an evolution of the character, and she requested several adjustments to the script to avoid moments that she found too similar to the series. To justify the many people that Maximoff kills in the film, Olsen focused on the character's perspective of those people being in her way and not listening to her after the loss of her children in the series.


text: After a planned appearance by Cumberbatch in "WandaVision" was removed late in the development of the series, rewrites to the "Multiverse of Madness" script were required which Feige described as a "wonderful combination of very dedicated coordination, and chaos". These changes include how Strange and Maximoff meet in the film. The story of "Multiverse of Madness" is still set up by "WandaVision", but the film was developed to also work for viewers who did not watch the series. For consistency with the "Darkhold" appearance, the film's props department designed the prop that was used for "WandaVision" and then reused it for the film. While writing his first draft, Waldron felt the film needed to "get drunk [and] find the madness in the multiverse" by introducing alternate universe versions of known Marvel characters. This led to the introduction of the Illuminati, a secret society from the comics. Waldron had been watching the film "Aliens" (1986) as inspiration for the script's thriller tone, and enjoyed how the "badass" space marines "just get slaughtered" by the titular aliens to set the latter up as scarier villains for the rest of that film. He wanted to do something similar with Maximoff by introducing the Illuminati as a group of characters that fans would be excited to see and then have Maximoff kill them all. The idea of Strange taking control of a dead body for the end of the film came from Waldron and Palmer discussing how he would be able to confront Maximoff from a different universe, with the corpse of another version of Strange having been already established at the start of the film. Raimi, Feige, and Cumberbatch were all excited for the idea, despite Raimi initially wanting to avoid a zombie sequence to not repeat what he had done previously with zombie films.


text: The film's release was shifted again at the end of April 2020, this time to March 25, 2022, after Sony Pictures rescheduled "Spider-Man: No Way Home" to the November 2021 date. Until then, Waldron had been writing the script expecting "Multiverse of Madness" to be released before "No Way Home". He was in contact with "No Way Home" writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers throughout the writing process, and after the release date change they adjusted their respective scripts so instead of "Multiverse of Madness" "blowing the lid on the multiverse" it would pick up after "No Way Home" with Strange already having multiverse experience. This change had a "knock-down effect" on the rest of the script. There had been early plans to include America Chavez in "No Way Home". Raimi noted that where "No Way Home" saw characters from other universes enter the MCU, "Multiverse of Madness" features characters from the MCU entering the multiverse and exploring different universes. Ejiofor confirmed his involvement in June, and Xochitl Gomez joined the cast in October. Cumberbatch revealed that month that filming would start in London by the beginning of November, with the production not impacted by a national lockdown in England that was set for November 5 to December 2 .


text: Principal photography began in November 2020 in London, under the working title "Stellar Vortex". Filming was delayed from an initial May 2020 start date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Olsen began filming her scenes by November 25, shooting back-to-back with "WandaVision", and found it odd to transition from the series back to starring in an MCU film. At the beginning of December, filming was taking place at Longcross Studios in Longcross, Surrey, where several New York City blocks and sets for the Sanctum Sanctorum were built by production designer Charlie Woods. McAdams soon signed on to return as Palmer, shortly before Feige officially confirmed her involvement on December 10 along with that of Ejiofor, Wong, and Gomez. He also revealed that Gomez would portray America Chavez. Cumberbatch had begun filming his scenes by then, after completing his work on "No Way Home". He said the film was more collaborative than his previous MCU appearances, for which he felt like he was "just along for the ride".


text: Many of the actors, including Olsen, Cumberbatch, and Wong, were excited to be working with Raimi. The director said many "dimensionalized visuals" were used during shooting to tell the film's story, as he was able to use his preferred camera techniques such as using the camera and perspective to create a feeling of anxiety for audiences. John Mathieson served as cinematographer, and shot the film with Panavision DXL2 IMAX-certified cameras. Raimi encouraged improvisation, explaining that the cast could adapt their interactions due to their knowledge of their own characters, and that the script often changed shortly before filming for those scenes began. The ending of the film was still "up in the air" when filming began, and Cumberbatch said it took some time for the team to decide on one which tied together all of the characters' stories. Waldron explained that they felt the ending was too happy following all the "bad shit" that happens in the film, and wanted to show that Strange would suffer consequences for his actions (including possessing the corpse of a different version of himself) which tied into Mordo's warning from the first film: "The bill comes due." This led to them adding the ending scene where Strange develops a third eye in his forehead, and Waldron felt this was the sort of twist that horror films often end on. Elaborating on that tone, Olsen said they were going for a "horror show vibe", comparing it to Raimi's "Evil Dead" films with aspects of the horror genre such as "constant fear". She felt it was "more than a glossy "Indiana Jones" movie" and would be darker than those films, with Raimi trying to make "the scariest Marvel movie" and create "as much tension for the audience" as possible.


text: Olsen shot for three weeks before pandemic restrictions increased near the end of December due to a surge of COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom, with another lockdown in England announced from January 6, 2021. Filming resumed in early 2021, and at some point Cumberbatch had to temporarily pause filming after being in close contact with a member of the production who had a false positive test. In mid-March, Cumberbatch said they were in the middle of production, and Ejiofor had begun filming his scenes in London by then. Filming occurred at Broomfield Hill Car Park in Richmond Park for the week of March 25. Shooting took place at Freemasons' Hall, London, for a few weeks in April. On April 15, Feige said they were in the final week of filming, with shooting taking place from that day until April 17 at Burrow Hill Cider Farm in Somerset. Jett Klyne and Julian Hilliard, who respectively portrayed Maximoff's sons Tommy and Billy in "WandaVision", were reportedly on set at the farm, and were confirmed to be in the film in April 2022.


text: Bob Murawski and Tia Nolan served as editors of the film. Some additional photography had been completed by mid-September 2021, with Olsen and Wong completing their work. The film was once again delayed in October, this time to May 6, 2022. Later that month, Cumberbatch said they were in the middle of more additional photography, with further reshoots set for November and December, over at least six weeks in Los Angeles. "The Hollywood Reporter" said this photography was "significant" and included two weeks dedicated to filming that could not be completed during principal photography because of actor availability issues and COVID-related slowdowns. Cumberbatch confirmed the reshoots were being used to make adjustments to already shot material, while also filming parts that "were just impossible to do [during principal photography] because of logistics, COVID etc." "The Hollywood Reporter" later reported that the reshoots would allow the film to have "more fun with the multiverse" by adding more cameo appearances and variants of established characters, similar to "No Way Home" and the first season of "Loki". The film's teaser trailer was released in late December and confirmed the involvement of Michael Stuhlbarg as Nicodemus West, reprising his role from "Doctor Strange". It also revealed that Cumberbatch would portray multiple versions of Strange in the film. The reshoots reportedly wrapped during the week of December 13, but additional filming continued in early January 2022. The latter was completed on January 8. By the end of the month, Raimi had assembled a cut of the film that would be presented to test audiences, and said there was potential for more reshoots to occur if the test screenings found that clarification or improvement were needed; Cumberbatch was working on further reshoots in the United Kingdom by March 13.


text: Patrick Stewart, who portrayed Charles Xavier / Professor X in the "X-Men" film series, was revealed to be appearing in the film in an undisclosed role with the release of the full trailer in February 2022; Stewart was believed to be reprising the role of Xavier, which had previously been the subject of speculation. A poster for the film, released at the same time, additionally teased the inclusion of Captain Carter, a character who was introduced in "What If...?". Stewart initially denied that he was in the film, but soon admitted that he was. The trailer also revealed that Topo Wresniwiro would reprise his role of Hamir from "Doctor Strange". A creature resembling prominent Doctor Strange villain Shuma-Gorath appears in the film, but it is given the name Gargantos, which comes from a different comic book character, because the rights to the name Shuma-Gorath belong to Heroic Signatures. Gargantos' eye was modeled after that of Olsen's in order to foreshadow her role as the film's antagonist. The cosmic entity the Living Tribunal also makes a brief appearance. Discussing Stewart's involvement, as well as assumptions based on the trailer that the Illuminati would be appearing in the film, Palmer said returning actors would not necessarily be portraying characters that had been seen before, and if Marvel Studios were to introduce the Illuminati they would do a "more MCU-driven" version of the group.


text: The Illuminati's appearance was confirmed officially in March; and features actors portraying new versions of their characters from previous projects: Stewart plays a new version of Xavier that combines elements from his previous performances, including a line of dialogue from "" (2014), with elements from "" (1992–1997); Ejiofor plays a new version of Mordo; Hayley Atwell portrays Captain Carter after voicing the "What If...?" version; Lashana Lynch plays a different version of Maria Rambeau / Captain Marvel from the one she portrayed in "Captain Marvel" (2019); and Anson Mount portrays an alternate version of Blackagar Boltagon / Black Bolt from his role in Marvel's ABC television series "Inhumans" (2017). Also in the group is John Krasinski as Fantastic Four member Reed Richards. Krasinski had been a popular suggestion for the role by fans for some time, especially since the announcement of a new "Fantastic Four" film set in the MCU. When Lynch was approached to return, she assumed she would be playing an ancestor of Rambeau and was surprised to learn she would be an alternate version of Captain Marvel. The Illuminati sequence was filmed in pieces, with many of the actors not being on set together. Krasinski's footage was filmed during reshoots to replace a planned cameo appearance by Daniel Craig, who chose not to film the role because he did not believe a single day of filming was worth the risk of catching COVID-19 and spreading it to his family. Craig was reportedly set to portray the character Balder the Brave in the scene. Olsen never actually met Krasinski while shooting the scene in which Scarlet Witch kills Richards; Olsen filmed the scene instead with a stand-in. Waldron said the final line-up of the Illuminati was similar to the one in his first draft, but with some other suggestions coming from Feige. Waldron considered including Namor, a member of the Illuminati in the comics, but Marvel had other plans for him in the MCU; Waldron's first draft also included an Earth-838 counterpart of Evangeline Lilly's Hope van Dyne / The Wasp as a member of the Illuminati, who would have been killed by Maximoff clapping her hands to kill her. Storyboards by artist Soren Bendt for the Illuminati massacre scene suggest that, in addition to Balder the Brave, an Earth-838 counterpart of Obadiah Stane / Iron Monger, who was previously portrayed by Jeff Bridges in "Iron Man" (2008), was also considered for the group's lineup. There were also rumors that Tom Cruise would be portraying an alternate version of Iron Man in the film after being in contention for the role back in the 1990s before Robert Downey Jr. was cast as the title character in 2006. Waldron expressed interest in the idea, but Cruise was never approached due to his filming schedule for "" (2023) and "" (2024). Other rumors about potential cameos included an appearance of Ryan Reynolds reprising his role as Wade Wilson / Deadpool from Fox's "Deadpool" (2016) and "Deadpool 2" (2018); Waldron confirmed there had been discussions about bringing Reynolds in to play Deadpool before they decided that the film was not "the right place" to feature him. Another character introduced in the film is Clea, with Charlize Theron cast in the role. Waldron said they wanted to include her in the film but felt they needed to resolve Strange's relationship with Christine Palmer first, so the character's introduction was saved for the mid-credits scene to set her up as a potential new love interest in a future story.


text: Industrial Light & Magic, Digital Domain, Framestore, Luma Pictures, Capital T, Sony Pictures Imageworks, WetaFX, Trixter, Crafty Apes and Perception worked on the visual effects of the film. Framestore worked on the multiverse jumping sequence with Strange and Chavez, while Luma Pictures worked on the Gargantos fight scene. Perception also designed the film's main-on-end title sequence, which employs colorful Rorschach test visuals because Raimi wanted the sequence to "both compliment and contrast the film". Graham Churchyard served as costume designer and created most of the costumes for the film, with the exception of those intended for Black Bolt and Richards, both of which could not be completed in time due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and were done through the use of visual effects instead. In late August 2022, Waldron revealed that one of the first drafts of the film's script included a post-credits scene involving a seemingly alive Richards, but the idea was scrapped.


text: "Doctor Strange" composer Michael Giacchino was set to return for the sequel by October 2019, when Derrickson was set as director. After Raimi took over, Danny Elfman was hired as composer; Elfman previously worked with Raimi on "Darkman" (1990), "A Simple Plan" (1998), "Spider-Man" (2002), "Spider-Man 2" (2004), and "Oz the Great and Powerful" (2013). Elfman said he would refer to Giacchino's "Doctor Strange" theme in a similar way to how he used Alan Silvestri's theme from "The Avengers" (2012) when working on "" (2015). By February 2021, Elfman had begun working on music to be used during filming, but would not begin work on the actual score for the sequel for several months. In January 2022, Elfman revealed that he was working on completing the score, which included conducting an orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London. Elfman's frequent collaborator Steve Bartek worked on the score remotely over Zoom. Besides Giacchino's "Doctor Strange" theme, the score also features the song "" by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez from the "WandaVision" episode "Don't Touch That Dial", Ron Wasserman's main theme from "X-Men: The Animated Series", and Silvestri's "" from "" (2011). A soundtrack album featuring Elfman's score was released digitally by Hollywood Records and Marvel Music on May 4, with three "spoiler tracks" that were excluded from the initial release being made available on May 20.


text: A teaser trailer for the film was played after the end credits of "Spider-Man: No Way Home", before being released online on December 22, 2021. Matt Webb Mitovich of "TVLine" called it a "rousing, thrilling trailer" and noted the ending that revealed an alternate version of Strange. He believed this was Doctor Strange Supreme, an alternate version of the character introduced in "What If...?". "Inverse" Alex Welch felt it was a "suitably psychedelic teaser, full of revelations and fun moments that should leave Marvel fans gobsmacked", and suggested the film would tie together "many of the multiversal threads left hanging" from "No Way Home", "WandaVision", and the first seasons of "Loki" and "What If...?". Writing for "Decider", Alex Zalben believed the film was a "direct result" of "What If...?", which "instantly mak[es] the animated series far more important than Marvel fans might have originally realized". James Grebey at "Syfy Wire" said there was "a very ominous aura to the whole trailer". Daniel Chin of "The Ringer" felt the trailer had "creepy imagery" and that it was "expected to separate itself from other Marvel projects even further by weaving in horror elements", while also noting how the film won't have to introduce the multiverse, and can instead explore it even further, and also how it'll be the "first real attempt to blend existing story lines from its Disney+ series with its big-screen properties", while he thought made it the "first major crossover event in Phase 4". Also in December, merchandise began to be made available with the reveal of Marvel Legends figures based on the film.


text: A teaser aired during Super Bowl LVI on February 13, 2022, with the full length trailer then debuting online. Justin Carter at "Gizmodo" highlighted how the trailer continued the first film's "visually trippy" approach to alternate dimensions while adding more horror elements, and was also excited by the brief appearance of America Chavez, while his colleague Germain Lussier felt, compared to the teaser, the trailer "raised the stakes exponentially with all manner of wild revelations and images". "Entertainment Weekly" Devan Coggan also felt the trailer was "trippy" and added that it "seems to have more in common with Raimi's iconic horror films". "The Verge" Charles Pulliam-Moore said the trailer did a better job conveying the film's plot than the teaser, and he felt the film would be the "culmination of the big-picture troubles" teased in "WandaVision" and "Loki". Many commentators noted the revelation of Patrick Stewart's involvement in the trailer and the implication he could reprise his "X-Men" role of Charles Xavier / Professor X, which led to speculation that "Multiverse of Madness" would introduce the MCU version of the Illuminati. RelishMix reported that the trailer had 93.12 million views in 24 hours across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, which was the top trailer among those airing during the Super Bowl according to their metrics. Disney reported 143 million online views across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Google searches, and 55 million broadcast views.


text: Funko Pops based on the film were revealed in March 2022. In April, Procter & Gamble released a commercial promoting the film and Tide laundry detergent featuring Wong and the Cloak of Levitation. Later that month, Disney showcased the opening sequence of the film at CinemaCon. The film also partnered with G Fuel and Xbox, which created custom cobranded console kits and controllers inspired by the film, while also featuring a Jaeger-Le Coultre watch in the film. It also partnered with Mori Building Company, a Japanese urban landscape developer, which turned its café and menu into an interactive photo op experience to promote the film. Additional partnerships included Cadillac, Maybank, Shell US in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, and also Xiaomi and T-Mobile in the EMEA region. Three episodes of the series "" were released on April 29, exploring Doctor Strange, Wong, and Scarlet Witch using footage from their previous MCU appearances. Eight VTubers from Hololive Production promoted the film in a special pre-premiere stream event on YouTube on May 3.


text: "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" held its world premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on May 2, 2022. The film was released in the United Kingdom on May 5, 2022, and in the United States on May 6, in 4DX, RealD 3D, IMAX, Dolby Cinema, ScreenX, and Superscreen. It was originally set for release on May 7, 2021, but was pushed back to November 5, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before it was further shifted to March 25, 2022, after Sony rescheduled "Spider-Man: No Way Home" to November 2021. In October 2021, it was shifted once more to its current May 2022 date. The film is part of Phase Four of the MCU.


text: In April 2022, "The Hollywood Reporter" confirmed that the film would not be released in Saudi Arabia due to the inclusion of America Chavez, a gay character, given the region's censorship of LGBTQ references. Nawaf Alsabhan, Saudi Arabia's general supervisor of cinema classification, said the film had not been banned from the country but revealed that Disney was "not willing" to grant their request of cutting "barely 12 seconds" of a scene in which Chavez refers to her "two moms". The film had been set to release in several Persian Gulf countries on May 5, before advanced tickets were removed from cinema websites in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. Tickets were still available in the United Arab Emirates, which "The Hollywood Reporter" stated was an indication that the film could still be released there. IMAX Corporation also confirmed that the film would not be released in Egypt. Cumberbatch was disappointed by the countries' decisions to not release the film, saying: "We've come to know from those repressive regimes that their lack of tolerance is exclusionary to people who deserve to be not only included, but celebrated for who they are and made to feel part of a society and a culture and not punished for their sexuality. It feels truly out of step with everything that we've experienced as a species, let alone where we're at globally more as a culture, but frankly, it's just even more reason why this isn't tokenism to include an LGBTQ+ community member". "Deadline Hollywood" reported in late April that the film was unlikely to be released in China after a newspaper box for "The Epoch Times", a newspaper that opposes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was noticed in the film's trailer. It had been submitted for review to Chinese officials by that time. In mid-May, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the situation was complicated but noted that the film was already commercially successful without a release in China.


text: The film began streaming on Disney+ on June 22, 2022, with the option to view the theatrical version of the film or an IMAX Enhanced version. It was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 26. The home media includes audio commentary, deleted scenes, a gag reel, and various behind-the-scenes featurettes.


text: According to Samba TV, "Multiverse of Madness" was watched by 2.1 million U.S. households within its first five days of being available on Disney+; this was comparable to the viewership of "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021) and "Eternals" (2021).


text: "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" grossed $411.3million in the United States and Canada and $544.4million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $955.8million. It is the third-highest-grossing film of 2022. The film grossed $42 million in ticket presales through Fandango, and sold the most tickets on the platform since "" (2021), while also surpassing ticket presales for "The Batman" (2022) within 24 hours. Its worldwide opening weekend of $452.4 million was the ninth-largest opening ever, and marked the highest May debut of all-time for IMAX ($33 million).


text: In the United States and Canada, the film grossed $187.4million in its opening weekend, surpassing the $151million opening weekend gross of "Spider-Man 3" (2007) to become the highest of Sam Raimi's career. It grossed $90.7million on its opening day, which included $36million from Thursday previews. The preview was the second-best preview during the pandemic behind "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and the overall eighth-largest preview performance, while the opening-day gross was the seventh-highest in industry history. The film's $90.7 million opening day tally is also the largest single May day total of all time. In its second weekend, the film grossed $61 million, becoming one of the MCU's biggest second-weekend box office drops. The 67% decline was attributed by "Deadline Hollywood" to the "bad word of mouth" on the film and its CinemaScore grade, while EntTelligence saw more than 17% downsize of available seats for the film, resulting in less showtimes which also led to the decline. In its third weekend, the film grossed $31.6million. The film grossed $17million in its fourth weekend for a running total of $376.1million, passing "The Batman"s $369.3million to become the highest-grossing film of 2022 (later surpassed by "").


text: Outside the United States and Canada, "Multiverse of Madness" grossed $265 million from 49 markets within its opening weekend, landing at number one in numerous markets. The film grossed $27.2million from 20 markets on its opening day, surpassing the first-day overall results of "Doctor Strange" (2016) by 153% and "The Batman" by 210%, but falling behind "No Way Home" by 4%. The film had the highest opening day gross for a film released during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines and Thailand, with $1.2million in both markets, and the second-best ditto in France ($3million), Italy ($2.2million), and Germany ($1.8million). In Malaysia, the film grossed $1.6million on its opening day to become the second highest in the country's history. The film grossed $10.3million from its previews in Latin America, including from Mexico ($3.5million) and Brazil ($2.7million). , the film's largest markets are the United Kingdom ($51.4million), South Korea ($49.2million), Mexico ($40.6million), Brazil ($33.1million), and France ($27.7million).


text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 74%, with an average score of 6.5/10, based on 446 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" labors under the weight of the sprawling MCU, but Sam Raimi's distinctive direction casts an entertaining spell." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 65 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 82% of audience members gave it a positive score, with 69% saying they would definitely recommend it.


text: Don Kaye of "Den of Geek" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, feeling that it would "please the legions of established fans by embracing the comic book weirdness of it all with vigor and abandon, as Sam Raimi creates possibly the MCU's most off-the-wall entry yet". He praised Raimi's directing style of the film that he regarded as one of "the most singularly identifiable vision of an MCU director". He also praised Olsen's performance which brought a "real, palpable, heartbreaking grief to the part along with an electrifying single-mindedness" and McAdams' appearance which was "given more to do" in the film, but felt Gomez's role was "reduced to the role of exposition machine in the course of the film's events". Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" felt that the film was "a ride, a head trip, a CGI horror jam, a what-is-reality Marvel brainteaser and, at moments, a bit of an ordeal. It's a somewhat engaging mess, but a mess all the same." He found Raimi's direction in a number of scenes in the film had "the companionable spirit and shifting imagistic flair he showed in the first two "Spider-Man" films". Leah Greenblatt from "Entertainment Weekly" praised Raimi's take on Doctor Strange and direction, saying the film felt like "many disparate and often deeply confusing things — comedy, camp horror, maternal drama, sustained fireball" but different from previous MCU films; Greenblatt called this experience "wildly refreshing", having been 28 films into the MCU. "Deadline Hollywood" Pete Hammond also praised Raimi's direction and storytelling, which he thought was a "successfully entertainingly" mix of "kind of dark, terrifying" storytelling with established MCU characters, and felt it was similar to his previous horror films, such as "The Evil Dead" (1981). Amelia Emberwing at "IGN" rated it a 7 out of 10 and said that there was "something about this newest chapter" of the MCU, concluding that the film was "a Sam Raimi film through and through". Nicholas Barber of BBC.com called it "as gleefully outlandish as any independent cult movie".


text: "The Hollywood Reporter" John Defore wrote that while longtime Raimi fans may "be deflated" by the Kamar-Taj battle scene in "Multiverse of Madness", the director shows flashes of his "distinctive style" in the following scenes. He also thought the film was "unsatisfying in some respects", but praised the final act, which he felt starts to "play more to Raimi's strengths – [it's] looser, more kinetic and occasionally goofy despite [the] big stakes". Justin Chang of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film a positive review, and also praised the film for Raimi's direction. He called the film an "alternately goofy and grisly story that pauses every so often to unleash a tidal wave of grief". Chang praised the performances, particularly Cumberbatch's and Olsen's, while also praising the visuals and the film's approach to the multiverse, which he felt allowed it to "pose a few playful questions about fate, predestination and human decency", and its difference from traditional "quip-a-minute tone that is the Marvel enterprise's preferred comic idiom". "Empire" Dan Jolin rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, praising Raimi's direction and the action sequences, which he felt were creative, and felt the film was "Marvel's most deranged and energetic movie yet, as much of a winning comeback for director Sam Raimi as it is a mega-budget exercise in universal stakes-raising." David Sims of "The Atlantic" called the film "surprisingly good" and also praised Raimi's direction, remarking that he was glad to "see space for a real genre auteur amid all the multiversal machinations" in the MCU, though he criticized the pacing and the cast.


text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, and gave the film a critical but mostly positive review. He concluded his review by saying that "infinite realities tend to reduce the dramatic impact of any one single reality, and reduces what there is at stake in a given situation. Nonetheless, it’s handled with lightness and fun". "IndieWire" David Ehrlich also gave a more critical review, as he felt that Doctor Strange's character had been "diluted" after the events of "No Way Home", and said "slowly, gradually, and then with great enthusiasm, what begins as a staid tale of people hurling CGI at larger pieces of CGI while yammering on about whatever new thing is threatening all existence evolves into something less familiar: a violent, wacky, drag-me-to-several-different-hells at once funhouse of a film". He remarked that while he thought Raimi's style in the film was "not enough to make "Multiverse of Madness" a great movie, ... it was enough to make it a real Sam Raimi movie". Brian Tallerico of "RogerEbert.com" rated the film 2 out of 4 stars, and gave it a negative review, feeling the film was "sewn together from pieces of other films, comic books, and TV shows and given life with the electricity of a Marvel budget" and labeled it a "Frankenstein movie". He criticized the characterization in the film, and felt that "the story keeps coming back to incredibly shallow character traits like Wanda's grief, Strange's unspoken love for Christine, or America's uncertainty about her own powers" instead of focusing on the potential of the multiverse, and criticized the use of CGI, though he added that the film did contain Raimi's "visual flair". Alonso Duralde of "TheWrap" also gave a negative review, comparing the film's use of the multiverse to that of "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022), and wrote "Daniels' boldly inventive indie movie explodes with wit and nerve and character – most of which are prominently missing from this latest MCU adventure", and also criticized the screenplay of the film, which he thought was "so crowded with plot and incident and magical doodads that there's no room for the characters", though he praised Elfman's score and the visuals.


text: In February 2021, the documentary series "Marvel Studios: Assembled" was announced. The special on this film, "Assembled: The Making of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", was released on Disney+ on July 8, 2022.


title: 2022 in film

text: 2022 in film is an overview of events, including award ceremonies, festivals, a list of country-specific lists of films released, and notable deaths.


title: 2022 in film

text: List of some of the film festivals for 2022 that have been accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).


title: Kanye West

text: Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer and fashion designer.


title: Kanye West

text: Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West initially gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s, producing singles for several artists and developing the "chipmunk soul" sampling style. Intent on pursuing a solo career as a rapper, he released his debut studio album, "The College Dropout" (2004), to critical and commercial success. He founded the record label GOOD Music later that year. West explored diverse musical elements like orchestras, synthesizers, and autotune on the albums "Late Registration" (2005), "Graduation" (2007), and "808s & Heartbreak" (2008). His fifth and sixth albums "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010) and "Yeezus" (2013) were also met with critical and commercial success. West further diversified his musical styles on "The Life of Pablo" (2016) and "Ye" (2018) and explored Christian and gospel music on "Jesus Is King" (2019). His tenth album "Donda" (2021) was released to continued commercial success but mixed critical reception. West's discography also includes the two full-length collaborative albums "Watch the Throne" (2011) with Jay-Z and "Kids See Ghosts" (2018) with Kid Cudi.


title: Kanye West

text: One of the world's best-selling music artists, with over 160 million records sold, West has won 22 Grammy Awards and 75 nominations, the joint tenth-most of all time, and the joint-most Grammy awards of any rapper along with Jay-Z. Among his other awards are the "Billboard" Artist Achievement Award, a joint-record three Brit Awards for Best International Male Solo Artist and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Six of West's albums were included on "Rolling Stone"s 2020 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list with the same publication naming him one of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. He holds the joint record (with Bob Dylan) for most albums (4) topping the annual Pazz & Jop critic poll, and has the 5th most appearances on the "Billboard" Hot 100 (133 entries). "Time" named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015. As a fashion designer, he has collaborated with Nike, Louis Vuitton, Gap, and A.P.C. on clothing and footwear and led the Yeezy collaboration with Adidas. He is also the founder and head of the creative content company Donda.


title: Kanye West

text: West's outspoken views have received significant media coverage; he has been a frequent source of controversy due to his conduct on social media and at awards shows and public settings, as well as his comments on the music and fashion industries, U.S. politics, race, and slavery. His Christian faith, high-profile marriage to Kim Kardashian, and mental health have also been topics of media attention. In 2020, West launched an unsuccessful independent presidential campaign that primarily advocated for a consistent life ethic. In 2022, he was widely condemned and lost many sponsors and partnershipsincluding his collaborations with Adidas, Gap, and Balenciagaafter making a series of antisemitic statements. In November 2022, he announced his 2024 presidential campaign, appearing publicly with white supremacist Nick Fuentes. He later publicly praised Adolf Hitler, denied the Holocaust, and identified as a Nazi.


title: Kanye West

text: West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia. After his parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois. His father, Ray West, is a former Black Panther and was one of the first black photojournalists at "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution". Ray later became a Christian counselor, and in 2006, opened the Good Water Store and Café in Lexington Park, Maryland, with startup capital from his son. West's mother, Donda C. West (née Williams), was a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University and the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University before retiring to serve as his manager.


title: Kanye West

text: West was raised in a middle-class environment, attending Polaris School for Individual Education in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois, after living in Chicago. At the age of 10, West moved with his mother to Nanjing, China, where she was teaching at Nanjing University as a Fulbright Scholar. According to his mother, West was the only foreigner in his class, but settled in well and quickly picked up the language, although he has since forgotten most of it. When asked about his grades in high school, West replied, "I got A's and B's."