Marvel’s post The Avengers movie slate still remains in flux but there’s movement behind-the-scenes that suggest some new characters are in line for their own feature.
Deadline is reporting that Marvel has inked screenwriters Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write a script for Dr. Strange for what could become the first Marvel movie released under Disney. The duo has already penned scripts for Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens (currently shooting), Conan the Barbarian (wrapping up shooting) and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the latter based on Sony’s Playstation 3 video game which now sits idle at Sony Pictures.
The character of Dr. Strange, a New York surgeon robbed of his touch in an accident but develops and uses psychic powers to battle evil, has been ripe for a feature-film treatment for many years. Bob Gale, Wes Craven, David Goyer, Stephen Norrington and Guillermo del Toro have all had a crack at the story at various studios before the rights fell under Marvel where a new version is now moving forward.
It’s hard not to start thinking about who fill fill the doctor’s shoes even though the development cycle is in first gear. According to Bleeding Cool, there’s a push in the comic community for another kind of doctor, Grey’s Anatomy’s Patrick Dempsey, to don the cape and white hair stripes. They even have artwork of Dempsey in the role created by comics artist-working-in-Hollywood Arne Starr that supposedly already has led to a meeting between the actor and Marvel Studios.
It seems a little early in the game for meetings, but you have to admit the artwork looks great and Dempsey’s pull with female viewers would help broaden Dr. Strange’s audience. There’s no arguing he doesn’t have the hair.
