With only a mere four massive franchise installments prepped for this year and next, Kevin Feige and Marvel have begun delving into one of the more mystical of their properties, “Doctor Strange.” Reports that Johnny Depp might play the titular superhero were quickly dashed, and a list of potential directors for the film has gained traction, with such names as Jonathan Levine (“50/50”), Scott Derrickson (“Sinister”), and Mark Andrews (“Brave”) in the mix. While Feige has confirmed meeting those names, he’s also said they’re not as close to deciding as some might believe.
At a recent junket for “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Feige laid down the current status of “Doctor Strange” for SlashFilm. “We’ve met with all of [those three],” he said, speaking of Levine, Derrickson, and Andrews. “Some of those three are not in contention anymore, some of those three we’re still talking with and there are many others. We have not narrowed it down as much as the internet thinks. I wish we had.”
As always, Feige likely favors the idea of playing catch-up rather than backtrack, so look for “Doctor Strange” developments to remain coy until Marvel decides differently. However, one detail in the comics universe that Feige is more open about relates to a long-standing rights issue with Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox. Both studios share partial rights in the characters of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, and only Fox can acknowledge the pair’s mutant status. So what does that mean for “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,” in which both appear as played by Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson? Some predicted a change of race, but Feige denies the switch.
"Well, Inhumans is something that we are definitely thinking about and we think there’s great potential there for a great movie," he said in a Huffington Post interview. "But, no, no — we have not linked those two [as it relates to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver].”
It remains to be seen how Joss Whedon evades the rights squabble, but our last bit of Marvel news comes in regards to “Agent Carter”, the planned ABC drama sprung from the One-Shot starring Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), first seen in “Captain America: The First Avenger.” According to a Collider interview with ‘The Winter Soldier’ screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, a pilot for a 13-episode season is in ABC’s hands, but a greenlight has yet to come; they also revealed that Howard Stark is a recurring character, and that the series would take place in 1946, the same period as Carter’s One-Shot.
