Doctor Strange

[Space Pirate Roberts]

This was mentioned as being in development in the low budget Marvel thread, but now that there's news specific to this film, it gets its own thread:

Disney-Marvel Partnership To Launch Theatrically With DOCTOR STRANGE?
Beaks here...

Deadline New York is reporting that Marvel Studios has hired the screenwriting duo of Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to adapt DOCTOR STRANGE as, potentially, the company's first film to be released via Disney. Donnelly and Oppenheimer have been getting a great deal of work lately - writing CONAN for Marcus Nispel, DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT for Kevin Munroe, and taking a crack at COWBOYS AND ALIENS for Jon Favreau - but their previously produced scripts for SAHARA and A SOUND OF THUNDER weren't exactly crackerjack stuff. Also, I've read their CONAN draft, and it is the primary reason why I've never been interested in Lionsgate's forthcoming reboot. So there's that.

The Deadline story doesn't mention whether DOCTOR STRANGE will be one of Marvel's modestly-budgeted films, but I'm guessing it will. If they had larger aspirations for the character, they would've already hired DOCTOR STRANGE superfan Guillermo Del Toro to bring Steve Ditko's magnificent illustrations to life. But who wants to see that?

This news doesn't fill me with confidence. Writers with a poor track record, and aside from that, I just don't see how you make a Doctor Strange movie without spending much. Not only is he supposed to be the world's greatest magic-user, but what he deals in isn't exactly Gandalf-style subtle enchantment; it's more the fireworks approach. On top of that, most of his enemies are freaky interdimensional monsters a la Lovecraft.

[YellerDog]

I think you could make an AMAZING 20-minute Doctor Strange movie... no dialog, all music and crazy-ass visuals. I have no faith in a 200-minute movie about the character.

[Nash]

The comic book adaptations are getting out of control.

[YellerDog]

Nobody-but-nobody gives a SHIT about "the origin of Doctor Strange".

[Space Pirate Roberts]

That I'll agree with. It should be handled in two minutes of expository dialogue with maybe a flashback, and not be the focus of the movie. This is also true for most other superheroes. We don't need to see every character's origin in full-movie-long detail; it's always pretty much the same story from character to character anyway, just with different names and a unique detail here and there.

[MechDeus]

If they actually made it a full on serious medical drama/psychological story about his life as a surgeon and trying to recover from the accident and his travels with zero magic special effects in it, it would be better than whatever standard stuff they go for. His briefly mentioned life pre-superhero was one of the more interesting ideas from a lot of the decent classic superheroes.

But that won't happen.

[YellerDog]

How are you so wrong?

[Shine]

Nobody-but-nobody gives a SHIT about "the origin of Doctor Strange".

Truth, if it's an origin movie, I'll just pirate it and hope it didn't suck enough for a sequel with a proper treatment.

If they actually made it a full on serious medical drama/psychological story about his life as a surgeon and trying to recover from the accident and his travels with zero magic special effects in it, it would be better than whatever standard stuff they go for. His briefly mentioned life pre-superhero was one of the more interesting ideas from a lot of the decent classic superheroes.

But that won't happen.

WTF?!

[MechDeus]

How are you so wrong?

Because I thought he was interesting character back then. Everything else was all people that got neat powers and then fought evil because evil was evil, dammit. Strange was a cocky asshole that got knocked down, and still completely blind to that tried to restore himself just to try and be a dick again. All they needed to do was scar his face or something instead of having him learn that the world doesn't revolve around him and you've really got the starter story for a standard villain. But instead that's how they went with a hero and I liked that. Unfortunately most of his hero shit was all the same thing to me so I didn't pay much attention to it; I vaguely recall Stan Lee like 10 years ago saying something to the effect of he really just enjoyed Dr. Strange because he got to make up neat words for the spells (and Ditko liked Strange and Fantastic Four's dimension hopping because he got to draw trippy nonsensical shit).

I mean, he's okay, but this is probably the one classic superhero where my amount of care stops shortly after he was supposed to become interesting.

[Space Pirate Roberts]

(and Ditko liked Strange and Fantastic Four's dimension hopping because he got to draw trippy nonsensical shit)

See this is what I'm talking about. How do you depict that on screen without spending a bozillion dollars? And if you're not going to depict that, then what's the fucking point?