You might think Marvel has its hands full, juggling all the studio’s current superhero properties, but they’re eager to add even more characters into the mix. There’s still that Ant Man movie out there to be made by Edgar Wright, and now it seems they’re getting serious about Doctor Strange.
The comic book adapting Disney studio hired Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write a script back in 2010 and now word is from Twitch that the script is done and Marvel must like it, because they’re pushing forward with a Doctor Strange movie. They’re looking for a director and someone to “oversee continued development” which I guess mean they’re planning rewrites. Ok, I guess they didn’t like it that much.
But if this is true, then it does sound like the studio is serious about making a movie out of this character. And you thought Thor was too obscure to get his own film. Doctor Strange isn’t exactly known to anyone outside of comic book reader circles, even though the character has been a prominent part of the Marvel universe since the 60s. If they make a movie out of him, he’ll be the first superhero character we’ve seen who really uses magic. Thor dabbled in that realm, but what looked like magic was actually just alien technology beyond our comprehension. Doctor Strange is a straight up master magician, and maybe the time for that kind of character is right, with Harry Potter finished and leaving a hole in the creepy occult corners of our movie-going life.
So who will play him? A number of different actors have been rumored over the years, including Patrick Dempsey. The only currently rumored candidate at the moment is Tom Welling, who formerly played Clark Kent on Smallville and who a few months go was rumored to be in Marvel’s crosshairs for a number of roles (including Strange).
