Marvel's DOCTOR STRANGE Will Include "Mind Bending Weirdness"
Art by Xteve Abanto
Director Scott Derrickson is deep in the development of Doctor Strange, which is supposed to go into production this November. It's going to be fascinating to finally see the magical realm introduced into the Marvel cinematic universe. I'm a big fan of the Sorcerer Supreme, but I really have no idea what to expect, especially given the fact Marvel tends to change things up a lot when they bring their characters to the big screen.
In a recent interview with Birth. Movies. Death., Marvel Studio president Kevin Feige talked about certain aspects of the film and how fantastical it will be. When asked if Stephen Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum will still be located in NYC's Greenwich Village, given the neighborhood is now more upscale than it was in the comics, Feige said:
"The Sanctum is on Bleeker Street, the modern day Bleeker Street. He will be the strangest thing walking out onto that street."
The biggest change that we've seen for the movie so far was the casting of Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. I thought that was a very interesting choice, but one that was easy to jump on board and support. In regards to why they took the character in that direction, Feige explains:
"As we were developing this film we looked at The Ancient One as a mantle more than a specific person. The sorcerers have been around for millennia, protecting us from things we didn’t know about until this story. There have been multiple [Ancient Ones], even if this one has been around for five hundred years, there were others. This is a mantle, and therefore felt we had leeway to cast in interesting ways."
Strange is easily the most fantastical character in the Marvel universe, and when asked how fantastical the film would be, Feige dropped an interesting Ant-Man SPOILER. So if you don't want to know something that happens at the end of Ant-Man, then don't read any further:
"We send Ant-Man on a very weird, mind-bending journey at the end of Ant-Man. It was something we hadn’t seen in a shrinking movie before, but it also represents the tip of the mind-bending weirdness we’re going to do in Strange, which I think will surprise people."
The site adds the following commentary on that ending:
One of the most surprising things about Ant-Man is that it contains a sequence at the end that can be honestly compared (in concept! This isn’t a value judgment!) to the ending trip sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s a huge highlight of the film, and it’s a moment that expands the visual vocabulary of the MCU films. And that was very on purpose, it seems.
During the interview, Feige also explained that Doctor Strange won't "entirely" abandon the phony Tibetan mysticism that Stan Lee used in the comics because, "The phony mysticism is part of what makes Doctor Strange interesting!" He also said that Strange will not be connected to Tibetan culture, as he "leaves New York in search of something and heads east."
The movie is set to be released on November 4th, 2016, and I'm confident that Derrickson is going to deliver a film that us fans are going to love.