Marvel's Doctor Strange made for a unique superhero movie in the way that its big final showdown wasn't a knockdown, drag-out fistfight, but instead a creative use of the manipulation of time. It turns out, this big finish was hinted at earlier in the movie. Doctor Strange 's director Scott Derrickson has confirmed, that the perpetual time loop of the movie's finale was referenced in the fact that the near-fatal car crash that sets the events of the story in motion actually took place on February second. Yes, the movie starts on Groundhog Day. But here's the thing, he might be messing with us, because he already confirmed that information last Groundhog Day. Yesterday, Derrickson posted the following tweet...
The tweet that Scott Derrickson references shows a screenshot of a brief image that we see in the film of Stephen Strange's watch, which confirms that the date is February second. Here Derrickson confirms that this wasn't an accident, but actually an intentional reference to the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, in which a television weatherman is forced to relive the same day over and over again. Doctor Strange ends with the new sorcerer using the Time Stone to put himself and the entity Dormammu into a perpetual time loop that repeats the same few moments, including Strange's own death, over and over again. Dormammu, like Bill Murray's Phil Conners, is able to realize that he is in the loop, and eventually, after an unclear number of loops, he relents, and leaves the Earth alone, if only to get out of the loop. Fans have joked since the film came out about the similarity, but it appears Scott Derrickson made the joke first.
But now, I'm feeling like I'm reliving the same day over again, because, as seen below, and in the story we wrote about it last year, Scott Derrickson hasn't been waiting two years for this easter egg to be revealed, because he actually confirmed it on Groundhog Day last year.
Is it possible that Scott Derrickson is having some Groundhog Day fun and confirming the same information a second time just to mess with people? The fact that he put the easter egg in the film to begin with shows that the guy has a solid sense of humor. Perhaps he's just extending the joke to a new level by confirming the news, as if it were new, every year on the same day. It's also possible he just forgot and thought this was the first time somebody had discovered the reference, but the alternative is much more fitting with the joke.
