Benedict Cumberbatch has said the upcoming Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will be as successful as Spider-Man: No Way Home.

• READ MORE: ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ review: Marvel’s mad mash-up in the multiverse

Following its release in December, Tom Holland’s third Spider-Man film became the first Hollywood film to gross over $1bn since 2019, reaching the milestone in just 12 days. By January it had become the sixth highest grossing film of all time at the box office, collecting a huge $1.69billion (£1.25bn).

But according to Cumberbatch, who plays the titular Doctor Strange, the upcoming The Multiverse Of Madness could be just as big.

“It’s a big, big movie,” he told Empire (via Screenrant). “It’s going to be an absolute riot. And if it brings off the level of ambition it’s got, we’re going to have a success on the level of Spidey. There you go, I’ll put my flag in the sand.”

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is a sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange. The 28th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe also acts as a continuation of Spider-Man: No Way Home, WandaVision, Loki and What If…?.

A recently released trailer suggests the events of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness pick up right after the end of No Way Home, which saw Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange casting a spell which tampered with the multiverse.

“I did what I had to do to protect our world,” Cumberbatch says off-camera, to which his sidekick-come-Sorcerer Supreme, Wong (played by Benedict Wong), replies: “You cannot control everything, Strange. You opened the doorway between universes, and we don’t know who or what will walk through it.”

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is primed for release in cinemas on May 6.

A synopsis for the film – the first trailer for which landed back in December of 2021 – reads: “Dr. Stephen Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens a portal to the multiverse. However, a threat emerges that may be too big for his team to handle.”

It’s the first of three MCU films due to hit the silver screen in 2022. Thor: Love And Thunder will follow on July 8, with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever slated for November 11. In addition, Marvel Studios have three Disney+ series in the pipeline this year: Moon Knight (which will premiere on March 30), She Hulk and Ms. Marvel.