DOCTOR
STRANGE.

DECADES OF FALSE STARTS, THEN A 90-MINUTE PRESENTATION

HOW SCOTT DERRICKSON WON THE JOB AFTER DECADES OF DOCTOR STRANGE ATTEMPTS

Doctor Strange took far longer to reach the screen than most Marvel films. Earlier attempts included a mid-1980s screenplay by Bob Gale, a 1989 script by Stan Lee and Alex Cox, a Wes Craven project in 1992 and a stretch with David S. Goyer attached until 2002. None of those versions became a film.

Marvel Studios hired Scott Derrickson in June 2014, after he impressed the studio with a self-funded animatic of an action sequence. He was competing against Jonathan Levine and Mark Andrews, and he has said he spent “a lot more money than was reasonable to get the job.” He wrote a 12-page astral combat sequence, storyboarded it and built an animatic, a moving storyboard. The pitch grew to include concept art for other set pieces, professional storyboard artists and a 90-minute presentation to Marvel.

The scene came from the comic Doctor Strange: The Oath. Derrickson said that the scene was “straight out of” that book, and that he wrote it, as it appears in the film, to get the job.

“I wrote that scene, as it is in the movie, to get the job”

Scott Derrickson

It paid off. Derrickson said that when he got the job, Marvel had to buy all of the material from him, “so I got all my money back.”

WRITERS ARRIVING IN TURNS AND A SCHEDULE THAT BENT TO ONE ACTOR

HOW JON SPAIHTS, C. ROBERT CARGILL AND A DELAYED RELEASE DATE BROUGHT IN BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Jon Spaihts was credited with the script when Cumberbatch’s casting was announced, and the schedule change later allowed Derrickson to co-write alongside C. Robert Cargill once Cumberbatch had been secured.

Cumberbatch was not the first answer. He was approached early in Derrickson’s hiring but had to decline because of Sherlock and a London run of Hamlet. Joaquin Phoenix then entered negotiations in July 2014 and withdrew in early October. By late October 2014 Cumberbatch had expressed interest, and Marvel accommodated his schedule by moving production from July to November 2016.

The official casting was announced alongside the 4 November 2016 release date. Kevin Feige said the role “requires an actor capable of great depth and sincerity.”

A CASTING DECISION THAT STILL DRAWS CRITICISM

WHAT DERRICKSON, CARGILL AND FEIGE HAVE SAID ABOUT CASTING TILDA SWINTON

The Ancient One is a Tibetan man in the Marvel comics, and casting Tilda Swinton in the role drew criticism as whitewashing from the time it was announced. The filmmakers’ own explanations are on the record, and they have changed in tone over the years.

In an interview published on 4 November 2016, Derrickson said he went through “mental gymnastics” over what the right thing to do was. He said he saw no way to avoid “the stereotypes of the old magical Asian mentor or a Dragon Lady.” He did not accept that his choice carried racist intent, and he acknowledged that Hollywood has “an abysmal track record” on Asian representation.

Co-writer C. Robert Cargill described the problem on the Double Toasted podcast in April 2016. He called the Ancient One “Marvel’s Kobayashi Maru,” a no-win scenario. Days later, in a letter to the New York Times reported on 30 April, he said his remarks were personal opinion and that he had joined after the first draft and had no part in the casting decisions.

Feige returned to the subject in May 2021, saying the studio had thought it was being smart by avoiding the cliché of the wise old Asian man, and that the reaction “was a wake-up call.” He said it was possible to avoid the cliché and cast an Asian actor.

INCEPTION AS A STARTING POINT AND 1,450 EFFECTS SHOTS

HOW THE FOLDING CITY, THE HONG KONG REWIND AND THE CLOAK OF LEVITATION WERE BUILT

The film has 1,450 effects shots, fewer than Guardians of the Galaxy, with Stéphane Ceretti supervising for Marvel. Ceretti said that four main companies carried the work, ILM, Framestore, Luma and Method, each picked for its strengths. Framestore, which delivered more than 365 shots, took the cloak, the astral form and the Mandelbrot-style environments. Method delivered about 270, including the car crash and the time-warping apple.

The reference point for the folding city was Inception. Derrickson said he was “standing on the shoulders of” that film’s approach to effects that did not rely on destruction, and wanted to push it further into surrealism. Ceretti said the team also drew on optical illusions, M.C. Escher, forced perspective, three-dimensional fractals and the mobile game Monument Valley.

“Inception was the spark but the film is the fire.”

Stéphane Ceretti, visual effects supervisor

ILM built most of the New York sequence. Shooting relied heavily on green screen and practical rigs, and the ILM team said “all we had in camera were a few walkways.” ILM’s Vancouver team did most of the work, using fractal geometry that is hard to control, and the studio made a 3D-printed 360-degree GoPro rig and a virtual reality test so the crew could judge the vertigo of the rotating city.

The Hong Kong fight runs the other way. In it, Strange reverses the destruction of the city by manipulating time. Actors moved forward while extras moved in reverse around them, and ILM’s Richard Bluff said that the company’s pipeline is “built around destroying buildings and cities, not putting them back together.” Luma handled the Dormammu and dark realm sequences.

THE REWATCH

AN $85.1 MILLION OPENING, A TIME-LOOP BOSS FIGHT AND A THOR SCENE SHOT BY TAIKA WAITITI

The ending is a boss fight with no city-wrecking. Derrickson said he wanted the climax to read as “a boss fight,” in the manner of a video game, and that the film avoids the citywide destruction of films like The Avengers. Strange’s answer to Dormammu is to trap him in a time loop rather than overpower him.

Feige described the Eye of Agamotto before release as a relic that can “manipulate probabilities,” which he put another way as the power to screw around with time. At that point the idea that it might hold the Time Stone was still only a theory.

The film runs 115 minutes and has two credits scenes. In the first, Strange and Thor share drinks while discussing Thor’s search for Odin. Derrickson said that Taika Waititi shot it on the Doctor Strange set before Thor: Ragnarok entered production, and that after post-production the team felt it was “kind of perfect” as a tag. In the second, Mordo drains Jonathan Pangborn’s magic and leaves him paralysed again.

Doctor Strange opened to $85.1 million in the US, ahead of Trolls at $45.6 million that weekend, though below the openings of Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. It went on to earn $232.6 million domestically and $445.2 million internationally, for $677.8 million worldwide against a $165 million budget, a total that includes a small 2020 Asia-Pacific re-release of $78,438.

Rotten Tomatoes lists an 89% critics’ score from 385 reviews, with a consensus that the film balances “its outré source material against the blockbuster constraints of the MCU.” Metacritic’s Metascore is 72 from 49 critic reviews. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave it a 100, calling it “a mind-blowing special-effects extravaganza.”

For a first watch, it sits in the Marvel movies in release order guide directly after X-Men: Apocalypse, with Logan next. It follows Team Thor in the MCU release order guide and Captain America: Civil War in the MCU movies-only order guide.