You know what’s the best way to detract from negative press? Take an alternate route to getting fan excitement back on track. And pardon our cynicism, but given all the negative press surrounding “Ant-Man”—Edgar Wright bailing on the project, for reasons detailed here—the timing of Marvel announcing the director of “Dr. Strange” feels pretty convenient. Nonetheless, the studio has found the filmmaker to helm the story of the Sorcerer Supreme.
Rumored to be among the directors up for the job, Variety reports that Scott Derrickson, the writer/director behind “Sinister,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and the writer of Atom Egoyan’s recent “The Devil’s Knot,” has finally landed the gig (or at least is in talks that should be finalized soon).
Who will play Stephen Strange, a.k.a. Dr. Strange, a not-yet-superhero briefly referenced only by name in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”? Probably not Johnny Depp, who had been rumored at one time (a pie-in-the-sky idea Marvel had on their wish list that didn’t pan out). Some of the semi-recent (and not-so-recent), but unsubstantiated casting rumors include Adrien Brody, Jared Leto and “Game Of Thrones” star Aidan Gillen.
Dr. Strange debuted in 1963’s “Strange Tales.” The character Stephen Vincent Strange was a brilliant neurosurgeon who eventually becomes Marvel’s chief sorcerer fighting off all mystical and supernatural threats to Earth. Strange served on many Marvel teams including the Avengers and as part of Marvel’s Phase 3 plan, we can assume he’ll cross paths with the Avengers too, probably in “The Avengers 3.”
The idea of course—with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans looking to “retire” playing their characters after their longterm contracts are up—is that Marvel will build new heroes, introduce them into the team and probably quietly phase out the classic characters for now (until they’re rebooted and played by another actor, and or the story simply continues as it has in the James Bond films with multiple actors playing the same role). No release date has been set for “Dr. Strange” yet, and the way Marvel dates are mostly set, we may have to wait till 2017 or 2018 to see the character on the screen. That said, Derrickson did hit Twitter to say it will be his “next movie.”
Until then, you can catch Derrickson’s next effort, “Deliver Us From Evil,” starring Eric Bana and Olivia Munn, when it opens on July 2nd.
My next movie will be STRANGE: pic.twitter.com/5pdbO6Op6j
— Scott Derrickson (@scottderrickson) June 3, 2014