Two weeks ago the first teaser trailer for Marvel's DOCTOR STRANGE was released and its job was to introduce the general audience to the newest hero addition, Dr. Stephen Strange played by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Not only was the job of this first teaser to inform who Stephen Strange is, but it was to open the MCU up to the much bigger world of magic.
DOCTOR STRANGE Screenwriter C. Robert Carghill spoke on the podcast The Sunday Service and talked about introducing the Master of the Mystic Arts into the MCU. (Quotes transcribed by MCUX.)
"This teaser is, it’s the definition of a teaser. You are only getting a like a small taste of just how crazy this movie gets. We have only just the slightest hints of magic in there. There are major characters you don’t even glimpse in that trailer, there is so much stuff going on, that this thing is just nutty, the stuff they let us do, I can’t believe they let us do it. Like, just, … [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige and other producers like Stephen Broussard would be 'How can we make it crazier?' and I was like 'Aw right, let’s play around.' It’s just a hell of an experience."
Carghill, then, spoke about how this is a "magical fantasy" movie as well as the telling of the origin of Stephen Strange becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange.
"The key is, the main thing about Doctor Strange is that he’s got such a great story, he’s got such a great arc … he’s just such a cool character, but essentially it’s got a little something for everybody in the way that Dr Strange has a really great character arc, and is very much about characters. But it’s a superhero story, but it’s also a fantasy film, so if you’r like “Man, I don’t want to watch people fly around and shoot lasers at each other and just watch robots hit each other, I want to watch a fantasy film, I want something like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, you get a whole taste of that with Dr. Strange because it’s all very, it’s a very magical fantasy universe, but at the same time it plays by some of the superhero tropes that people enjoy.
"This is a guy rising to heroism, Doctor Strange starts as a very selfish, vain guy, who’s one of the most successful neurosurgeons in the world, he’s good looking, he has no problem getting women, he’s wealthy, he’s very full of himself … then he gets his hands shattered in a car accident and everything goes away. He loses everything and he becomes desperate, and he’ll try anything, so he falls in with magic and… I don’t want to spoil anymore about that. We are tackling the origin story, because the origin story is so awesome that Christopher Nolan ripped half of it off for BATMAN BEGINS."
That last part is important because while you've probably thought of, or read about, the film's first teaser comparisons to The Matrix or Inception, there's been some claims stating that DOCTOR STRANGE is ripping off the journey Bruce Wayne went on to become Batman in BATMAN BEGINS. As Carghill said it was writer/director Christopher Nolan who adapted something Dr. Stephen Strange has done in the comics into his movie, not the other way around.
DOCTOR STRANGE releases on November 4.
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