Earlier this month, Marvel picked Scott Derrickson as the director of Doctor Strange. The project about a neurosurgeon turned sorcerer and protecter of Earth is wasting no time picking up steam, as Marvel has announced the writer they want to craft the Doctor's first big screen adventure.
According to Deadline, Marvel has set their sights on Jon Spaihts to work on the screenplay for Doctor Strange. A first draft of the movie's screenplay, written by Thomas Dean Donnelly (Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Sahara) and Joshua Oppenheimer (Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Sahara), already exists. It's likely that Spaihts would be brought on to do a script re-write. Spaihts has some key recent writing credits: he wrote The Mummy reboot for Universal and was the first writer to work on the Prometheus screenplay. Though Marvel and Spaihts are still in negotiations, expect an official announcement soon. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more updates as this story develops.
While it's uncertain who will play Doctor Strange, Marvel is rumored to have a few actors specifically in mind for the role, including Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jared Leto.
For those unfamiliar with the character Doctor Strange, he made his first appearance in a 1963 issue of Strange Tales before later receiving his own Marvel series run. Here’s some more information, via Marvel.com:
“Doctor Strange is one of the most powerful sorcerers in existence. Like most sorcerers, he draws his power from three primary sources: the invocation of powerful mystic entities or objects, the manipulation of the universe’s ambient magical energy, and his own psychic resources. Strange’s magical repertoire includes energy projection and manipulation, matter transformation, animation of inanimate objects, teleportation, illusion-casting, mesmerism, thought projection, astral projection, dimensional travel, time travel and mental possession, to name a few. The full range of his abilities is unknown. Doctor Strange’s powers are sometimes less effective against strictly science-based opponents, although he can overcome this limitation with effort.
Doctor Strange is a skilled athlete and martial artist with substantial medical and magical knowledge. Though an expert surgeon, Strange’s nerve-damaged hands prevent him from performing surgery except when supplemented by magic.”
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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