Three years ago, Guardians of the Galaxy shouldered the burden of Marvel’s ‘big risk,’ and after James Gunn’s spacefaring romp blew past all expectations, a similar pressure began looming over Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man solo movie the following year. Ditto for Doctor Strange, and it’s really a testimony to writer-director Scott Derrickson that the Sorcerer Supreme’s standalone flick was able to transition audiences to the more fantastical, mythical corners of the MCU with relative ease.
A $673 million haul at the box office was enough to warrant early chatter of a sequel, and though Derrickson himself has conceded that his busy schedule may force him to vacate the director’s chair – or, the very least, nudge Doctor Strange 2 onto the back-burner – Benedict Cumberbatch is adamant that Scott Derrickson is the only man for the job.
Chatting to Cinema Blend, the Sherlock actor highlighted Derrickson’s particular creative process, and how the filmmaker was able to flesh out Strange’s origin story in a way that felt believable.
“I think also Scott’s got, he’s very good on process, and he’s very good on visuals and he had to cram a lot in. I mean this was a much harder shoot in many ways than I imagine some of the other origin stories had been. They’re all hard, not to detract from the hard work that they put in, but my point is that there was a massively fast turn around. So he was having to edit and approve special effects shots at the same time as setting up these huge sequences live and getting the camera and angles and performances and visuals right on the day. So he was double tasking in a pretty full on way and then he was, for someone who’s done stuff to do stuff with the supernatural before but never, as he’d be the first to admit I’m sure, never quite on this scale. He had to do it all with great skill and the results are on the screen. So yeah I think this film speaks to why Scott would be a great choice to direct it again.”
Even if Cumberbatch’s dashing magician is nudged down the pecking order over at Marvel – perhaps Doctor Strange 2 is one of the three as-yet-mysterious MCU films penciled in for 2020? – fans can look forward to the British thesp reprising as Strange in both Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, Joe and Anthony Russo’s titanic event film that pits Earth’s Mightiest Heroes against Thanos.
Doctor Strange graces DVD and Blu-ray on February 28th, lending Marvelites plenty of time to reacquaint themselves with the Sorcerer Supreme’s standalone outing before the advent of Thor: Ragnarok in November.
