Earlier this year I visited a series of large buildings that stood beside a dank wood in Surrey, England.
Inside was Kamar-Taj, an ancient training academy tasked with preparing the next generation of sorcerers. This is where Doctor Strange was learning his craft and becoming a Master of the Mystic Arts.
Below is a collection of interesting things I learned that day, from Kevin Feige, the film's director Scott Derrickson, and Strange himself, Benedict Cumberbatch. Some are rather big, relating to Strange's standing in the MCU and possible sequel ideas, while others are little tidbits that I thought were cool.
Doctor Strange represents a new type of hero within the Marvel Universe. One adjective that kept coming up was ‘lonely’.
“I always really liked the idea of a character who had gone through so much trauma and was placed into a position between our world and other worlds – other dimensions, literally,” says Scott Derrickson, the director. “That’s a lonely position.”
Strange following his life-changing accident.
Strange doesn’t want to become a hero: it isn’t a calling for him, like Captain America or Black Panther. And there’s even a clear difference with someone like Tony Stark, with whom he shares some less likeable character traits.
Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, said: “We’ve talked about that in comparison to Tony Stark, who is an arrogant, witty fellow at the beginning of the movie who sells weapons, and then is an arrogant, witty fellow at the end of the movie who doesn’t sell weapons, who channels his wit and intelligence into something else but is kind of the same guy. Strange’s transformation is much more complete than that.”
Strange alone.
Following his accident Strange becomes an outsider, slipping out of society. His hero’s journey is marked by personal suffering and discovery. His pain leads to transformation, with him finding a form of transcendence in the mystic arts. But even then, installed in the role of the Sorcerer Supreme, Strange is fated to remain isolated from the world and the people he’s sworn to protect.
Even though this is the 14th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Strange – like Guardians of the Galaxy – will very much play like a separate film in its own right.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Scott Derrickson on set.
In fact, Feige said, “If you didn’t know this movie was connected to 13 movies before it, nothing in this movie would indicate that was the case. This is very much a standalone introduction to a very complex character and a very complex world, which through this movie and until maybe some upcoming movies is relatively self-contained.”
Of course, Strange will eventually be incorporated with the rest of the MCU, but it sounds like he’ll only be getting involved when the stakes are sufficiently high.
The Defenders will feature Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.
If Netflix’s Defenders are the blue-collar heroes, looking after neighbourhoods and street corners, and The Avengers shield the planet for alien invaders. Strange, and his fellow sorcerers, are the ones who protect reality itself from being invaded or annihilated. The Sorcerers predate Strange’s induction, and that’s one of the reasons we haven’t seen them so far, despite the world recently being attacked by the likes of Ultron.
According to Feige, “So although it doesn’t necessarily come up, we’ve always assumed that the sorcerers have bigger fish to fry when they hear there’s something in a city or there’s a bank being robbed. They’re not thinking about it. They’re thinking if we don’t keep vigilant our sense of reality will disappear, and there won’t be a bank to rob and there won’t be a city to be conquered.”
This is in keeping with Strange’s role within the comics. He’s always something of an outsider when it comes to major tie-in events. In the comics, Strange sits out the Civil War, believing it to be a squabble not worthy of his attention.
Strange literally (and figuratively) sits out the Civil War.
While the movie’s not a direct adaptation of any existing work, inspiration is being taken from Brian K Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s The Oath – a five-issue mini-series which did a lot to update the character and, in particular, his relationship with Wong, his friend and partner.
The Oath (2006) by Brian K Vaughan & Marcos Martin.
“Actually there’s a sequence from the Oath which directly inspired a sequence in this movie,” Feige revealed, “which was a sequence that Scott actually included in his very earliest pitches to us. Maybe there was a character or two whose name we took from that, but this is not an adaptation of that story.”
Nicodemus West, a fellow surgeon, is confirmed on the IMDb page for the movie. In terms of what sequence might make it into the movie, possibly Feige’s referring to this one:
The Oath - Issue #1.
In the comics, it’s Night Nurse who is charged with helping out Strange, while here it’s Rachel McAdams’ Christine Palmer.
The next influence is J.M. DeMatteis’ Into Shamballa, which reads more like a theosophical tract than your typical superhero graphic novel. While it’s light on action, it’s a sustained exploration on the transcendental philosophy that underpins Strange’s world.
Into Shamballa by J.M. DeMatteis, Dan Green (1986).
Fracturing reality.
And finally, “Steve Ditko and the art of Steve Ditko is a huge inspiration for us”, said Feige. Inspired by his seminal run on the character, Marvel is trying to develop visuals that have never been seen before on the big screen. It was referred to as the biggest challenge facing the production – how do you bring to life the imagination of Ditko?
The mind-altering work of Steve Diko.
“For a lot of our interpretation of the multiverse and various dimensions come right out of all of the art of those early comics that Mr. Ditko did, and challenging our amazing visual effects vendors and visual effect supervisors – saying, ‘Let’s put this on the screen.’”
While Doctor Strange is Marvel’s first major foray into the supernatural – which is being touted as a whole new side of its cinematic universe – it’s actually building on groundwork laid down in Thor and Ant-Man.
Thor once said to Jane Foster that he came from a place where science and magic are one and the same. Doctor Strange continues in a similar vein.
Thor (2011)
The Ancient One dissolves Strange’s scepticism by revealing the underlying similarities between the mystic arts and scientific discovery. Feige revealed to us how she gets through to the man who doesn’t believe in chakras or the power of belief:
“She starts using Eastern lingo in the way she’s describing the world to him. He immediately writes it off – he rolls his eyes, he doesn’t buy it, and she goes okay, and she starts talking about it in Western terms to try and make him more comfortable. She says it’s the same thing.
"Whether you’re looking at the ancient study of acupuncture pressure points or you’re looking an MRI – she’s trying to say we’re talking about the same things here. And if you’re not comfortable with the word spells, let’s use the word programme.
“It’s all the same thing.”
Ant-Man gave us our first glimpse of the Quantum Realm, but Doctor Strange will take us much deeper, exploring not just parallel dimensions but entirely different realities. Strange even once had a prologue sequence set within the large hadron collider at CERN.
Going quantum.
But parallel dimensions in the Marvel Universe mean something more than alternate versions of our reality. “I think when comic book fans hear parallel dimensions or multiple dimensions they think of Earth 616 and Earth 617 and Earth 618,” says Feige. “That’s all possible. But what we’re playing with in this world is there are dimensions – that the other dimensions are not just parallel realities, although some of them are, but there are the Dark Dimension where Dormammu inhabits; there are dimensions that are so mind-bending that you can barely perceive them; there are dimensions where a lot of the Ditko images come from; there are dimensions that are just mind-trips that the human mind can barely fathom which is why it’s hard to turn them into something to show audiences in November.
“But we’re playing as much with the notion of the multiverse as much as alien dimensions, for lack of a better term, than parallel realities where there’s Strange that wears Iron Man armour – we’re not there yet.”
Continues
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