Though up until now, a ‘Doctor Strange’ movie has been heavily rumored, almost to the point that most just assumed that that was going to be the next Marvel movie after ‘Ant-Man‘. It still hasn’t been officially confirmed, but Marvel is reported to be meeting with directors, seeking to find the helmer for a movie about the Sorcerer Supreme.
In particular, there are four directors that Marvel has either met with or intend to meet with: Mark Andrews, the co-writer and co-director of ‘Brave’ and the co-writer of ‘John Carter‘; Nikolaj Arcel, director of ‘A Royal Affair’, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film last year; Dean Israelite, another foreign director who helmed the award winning short ‘Acholiland’ and the upcoming science fiction time travel film ‘Welcome To Yesterday’; and Jonathan Levine, perhaps the best known among the four, having helmed ‘Warm Bodies‘ and the acclaimed ’50/50’.
Jon Aibel and Glenn Berger, the co-writers of the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ movies are also supposedly on tap to pen the screenplay, but considering the four directors mentioned all wrote or co-wrote their movies, expect them to be heavily involved in the writing process.
‘Doctor Strange‘ was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1963 and the character was originally an arrogant surgeon who looses the use of his hands in a car accident. Desperate, he turns to a Tibetan mystic The Ancient One and after a humbling process is trained in the magical arts. The character has run pretty continuously since then, with his most popular villains being the Dread Dormamu and Baron Mordo. He has had two major love interest, Clea and Night Nurse. His name is actually Doctor Stephen Strange, so he doesn’t have an alter ego, thus paving the way for Luke Cage, Emma Frost, Jean Grey and every other Marvel character who doesn’t bother to use a code name.
In 1978, Marvel attempted to bring him to TV airing a movie/pilot (right), with Peter Hooten playing the lead character and Eddie Benton as Clea, but it tanked in the ratings. In 2007, the character starred in an animated direct-to-DVD movie, voiced by Bryce Johnson.
‘Thor‘ already brings an element of the supernatural to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so that opens the door for Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, so his magical adventures should work fine on screen, provided we get a grounded, human element to balance that.
Are you excited to see a movie based on this character? Or is Marvel starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel? More importantly, who would you like to see in the title role? (Or any supporting roles?)
Source: THR
