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Release Date: November 4, 2016

Director: Scott Derrickson

Screenplay: Jon Spaihts (based on draft written by Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer)

Composer: Michael Giacchino

Cast:
Benedict Cumberbatch - Dr. Stephen Strange
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Baron Mordo
Tilda Swinton - The Ancient One
Mads Mikkelsen - Kaecilius
Rachel McAdams - Christine Palmer
Benedict Wong - Wong

Official Synopsis:
"Marvel’s Doctor Strange follows the story of the talented neurosurgeon Doctor Stephen Strange who, after a tragic car accident, must put ego aside and learn the secrets of a hidden world of mysticism and alternate dimensions. Based in New York City’s Greenwich Village, Doctor Strange must act as an intermediary between the real world and what lies beyond, utilising a vast array of metaphysical abilities and artifacts to protect the Marvel cinematic universe."

Recommended Reading:
"The Origin of Dr. Strange” Strange Tales #115
"The Domain of the Dread Dormammu!” Strange Tales #126-127
"The Eternity Saga” Strange Tales #130-146
"Time Doom!” Marvel Premiere #11-14
"The Silver Dagger” Doctor Strange Master of the Mystic Arts #1-2, 4-5
“Final Curtain” Doctor Strange Master of Mystic Arts #10-13
"To Have Loved and Lost” Doctor Strange #55
"The Montesi Formula” Doctor Strange #60-62
"Don't Pay the Ferryman" Doctor Strange #75-81
“The Oath”
Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom - "Triumph and Torment"

I thought Cumberbatch was confirmed?

Top actor, but probably not my first choice for the role.

It's official, Benedict Cumberbatch will play Doctor Stephen Strange!

source: Marvel.com

He'll be good. He's always good.

he is a pretty safe and solid casting choice. I'm interested to see what he does with character

I have to admit, I was uncertain about the making of a Doctor Strange movie (anyone remember that '70's TV trainwreck?) but this should be pretty good.

That cast is unreal. That's like an Oscar movie cast, not Marvel movie. Looking forward to this. Obviously different than anything they've done before.

First official pic of Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange! (Updated with high-res versions.)
source: EW.com







Mads Mikkelsen confirmed as the main villain although his identity is not revealed:




The costume looks great!

Fuck yeah it does!

In a pleasant surprise, the first teaser is going to be released next Tuesday, April 12th! It will air on Jimmy Kimmel Live with Benedict Cumberbatch as guest.




Shitload of new set pics including our first look at Mads Mikkelsen in costume as the yet to be determined villain:

I'm pretty excited for this.

I wished the teaser showed a little more.

Doctor Strange Prelude #01




New Concept art:

Marvel are so on point right now I literally have nothing more to add.

The new trailer is definitely more interesting than the first. I don't mind the visuals cribbing Inception.

Does the wonderfully-named Dormammu make an appearance in the movie? He has to, right?

I agree about the building folding stuff being derivative of Inception. It's cool but honestly I've been expecting the visuals to more innovative and trippy that what we've been shown so far. I loved the Quantum Realm sequence at the end of Ant Man, very metaphysical and psychedelic imagery which fits the Strange-verse perfectly. Hopefully Marvel's saving some more impressive visuals for the final film.

Current speculation is that Mikkelsen's character could be a minion of Dormammu or possibly be possessed by him. There hasn't been much official confirmation of his involvement in the film one way or the other so far.


Edit: I missed this news but in addition to the new trailer there was also a full scene from the film shown to the audience at SDCC. Collider has a nice description of the scene.

New images:










Probably a pretty good bet that the Eye of Agamotto contains the

Getting pretty excited for this. My MCU ranking to date:

Cap 3 narrowly edges based on awesome factor
Cap 2
Avengers
Guardians
Iron Man 1
Cap 1
Ant Man
Thor 1
Avengers 2
Iron Man 3
Thor 2
Iron Man 2
--
--
--
Incredible Hulk

Rumors/Possible Spoilers from 4chan



Also I guess there was a small leak involving writer Dan Harmond that happened at the SDCC. Harmond has reportedly been brought on to do a script polish on various scenes. So apparently during a screenplay writing panel at SDCC, Harmond's assistant accidentally opened a page from the DS script and titles for some other scenes were visible in 'recent files' tab. One title pretty much confirmed a certain villain will make an appearance in the film. The scene titles are hidden below along with the leaked screenshot of Dan Harmond's computer screen.

I'm hearing this one is WEIRD.

I can't wait.

Universes Within Featurette (Great new footage which finally shows off some of the alternate dimensions with the trippy Ditko inspired visuals they've been promising.)



International Trailer:

2 weeks !

The countdown has begun..

Reading through some of the fan reactions/reviews so far, the general consensus seems to be that while the visuals are impressive and Cumberbatch shines as DS, the movie as a whole is average at best which is disappointing to hear. One more week to find out.

Couldn't be further from the truth.

The movie itself isn't "weird" as some suggest but it definitely pushes the boundaries on visual effects. Some of the imagery is flat-out astounding. The way they show alternate realities and other dimensions is very well done (think Ant-Man and the quantum realm and multiply it by a metric fuckton to the power of 12). The shot in the trailer of The Ancient One pushing Strange into the astral plane is just the beginning of a complete mind-fuck sequence.

There were a couple of things that bothered me but overall it's another fucking winner for Marvel.

Stick around for mid-credit and post credit scenes.

I can confirm the mind fuckedness of this movie. See it in 3D, it's well worth it.

Just got back from it and I'd say it's just OK, and that's disappointing because I was ready to love this film.

My first issue was that I didn't connect with any of the characters the way I wanted to. The best character moment of the entire film is the Ancient One's speech towards the end, and even that doesn't fully hit home because her relationships with the other characters aren't firmly established. That said, her character felt the most "alive" to me. I'm shocked that Strange felt so hollow. It's certainly a result of us not getting to spend enough time with him before his accident, and he doesn't reveal enough of his character through action; it's mostly explained by others' dialogue.

There's a lot of people saying and behaving a certain way because the script requires they do so to move the plot along. For example, Strange's assholish freakout at Christine felt jarring and forced. I know we're told that he's an arrogant prick before that moment, but he's never really played as THAT bad a guy. He's fairly playful and respectful to her prior to his accident. Sherlock is a far better example of Cumberbatch playing the kind of jerk that you can't stand as a person, but root for as a hero, and hope he can find an emotional centre to connect to other people.

I thought Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance was muddled, exaggerated and inconsistent. You don't get to understand the character's motivation until the last scene of the movie, and I didn't track where that came from. One moment he's this righteous warrior fighting to protect Earth, calling Strange a coward (why?) when he refuses to "kill" and the next he's working to rid the world of sorcerers because he learns that the Ancient One dabbled in the dark arts? So without trying to understand why she did, or what she used it for, he goes totally off the rails because he's a believer in naturalism? He's a world-bending sorcerer: I wouldn't exactly call his use of magic as "natural." I just don't get this dude's arc.

In general, there's a lot of undercooked shit like that in the plot that doesn't add up. At one point after his first battle, Strange freaks out because he's there to "learn to heal himself" not be a mystical warrior. This is supposed to be the moment in the hero's journey where he reluctantly accepts the call. Fine, but I don't get what Strange thought he was getting himself into to begin with when he joined. Did he not figure out that this wasn't just a magic medical school when he saw the karate lessons and magic weapon training? I guess maybe that was a common activity at his medical school.

I remember reading that Feige said that the movie takes place between the first Iron Man and current day. The idea being that Strange had been perfecting the mystic arts over the last 8 years. I thought this was an incredibly awesome idea but the film actually suggests that it takes place in a post-Avengers world, and maybe sometime before the events of Age of Ultron (you see Avengers tower standing tall in New York). First, I think the time period should have been specified more explicitly because we need to know how this character feels about the world he's in - if it's post-Avengers then he shouldn't be so weirded out by the mystic arts if he's watched aliens invade Earth. Second, there was a missed opportunity to show that Strange was actually the first of the Marvel heroes to to be organically learning about all of the extra-dimensional weirdness before any of the other earth heroes. You could show a scene where Strange observes the Battle of New York and wants to intervene, but the Ancient One / Wong makes the comment that it's the Avengers job to protect Earth from physical threats, not Strange and co's.

Quick hitters:

- Dormammu: cool.
- Comedy beats are hit and miss, but mostly too jokey and forced.
- Rachel McAdams and Mads Mikkelsen do nothing in this movie.
- Wong casually revealing that the Eye of Agamotto is one of the infinity stones was pretty forced; as if Strange knows what that means?
- Mid-credits scene was Marvel's worst, but the after-credits sets up the next Strange movie nicely.

Overall I give it 6.5/10 - The movie is never boring and always entertaining: the action scenes and the VFX are awesome and the 3D was terrific. I just don't think this is as well-written, structured or executed as Marvel's usual work.

I will agree that Rachel and Mads are extremely under utilized in this movie. There could have been much more there.

I think, of all the movies, this may be the worst in regards to "needing the original material".

If you've read Strange or know his back story, a lot of this makes more sense, but without it, it seems somewhat random and almost too straight forward of a movie to pull you in.

But, let's be honest, this movie was pure setup. For Strange 2, partially. FOr Thor 3, somewhat...but for Infinity War, definitely.

Where this movie sits within the MCU timeline needed to be addressed. Would have been much better if we knew where we were. Showing the Avengers Tower wasn't enough.

Also I never really got the feeling of how much time had transpired since Strange's accident to his starting his training to him living within the Sanctum Sanctorum?

Can't really disagree with anything that's already been covered. I'd probably give the movie a generous 7/10. I liked it but yeah, it could have been sooo much better.

I would have preferred more time with Strange prior to the car accident which came up quicker than I was expecting. As CoGro mentioned Strange didn't seem like all that big of a jerk. Extremely arrogant yes, but it seemed like most of the time we were being told he was a jerk rather than shown. He was much more of an asshole pre-accident in the comic origin if I recall correctly.

The timeline did feel a bit fast. I'm not sure why they decided to squeeze the film's events into roughly a one year time period. Scott Derrickson confirmed in a Q&A that the film does take place in 2016 and ends early 2017. While I don't feel they needed to stretch the timeline all the way back to phase 1, back dating it by maybe a few years to convey that more time had passed during his recovery and training period might have helped make it more believable. I don't recall Kevin Feige ever mentioning that the timeline would stretch from IM1 to present day. I think that notion came from a bogus plot synopsis posted on 4chan, at least that's where I remember reading it from.

The musical score was pretty forgettable which has become another unfortunate trend in these films. I also didn't care for the new opening fanfare/Marvel Studios card. I prefer Brian Tyler's version a lot more.

The humor worked me, I didn't find anything too jarring except maybe the bit with the cloak after TAO died.

Glad they were able to reimagine Dormammu's appearance but still have the recognizable segmented look of his face like in the comics.

I thought the credit stingers were better than Civil War's. (Yellow gloves for Strange!)

EDIT: Empire has an interview with Scott Derrickson in which he confirms that Cumberbatch not only provided the motion cap for Dormammu but he also did the voice which is pretty cool.

He also mentions a earlier version of the final fight which would have revealed that Strange had been killed by Dormammu over a thousand times. "We had a line where Strange said, ‘we've been through this a thousand times. Literally. I fancied the idea that they went through it thousands of times before Dormammu finally realised he wasn't going to get out of it."

Wish they had kept that in. That was something that I thought could have been executed better, giving a better sense that they might have been in that time loop for much longer than the scene conveyed.

yeah I had read some time ago the time period would start roughly at IM1 and conclude with present day. I didn't get that all watching the film which was a shame. Apart from that I really enjoyed this origin story. I thought this soundtrack was the most memorable since GOTG.

I kind of loved this for the visuals. The fractal city chase and reverse-time battle were brilliant but I wonder how it would hold up on second viewing? The story was definitely not there to support the effects.

I agree the film has issues. The pacing of the storytelling was too fast to build proper emotional connections to the main characters, and the 3 Sanctums defence plotline was a contrived VG-like plot device. But I didn't mind those weaknesses that much. Otherwise the film was everything I hoped it would be. The creative and playful visuals in this movie, trying to recreate Ditko's aesthetic from the comics, mean way more to me than how good the special effects were in most other blockbuster films, say Iron Man 3 or Star Trek Something. The trippy interdimensional journeys, whimsical magic relics and how spells are depicted are what I came to cinema to see. They felt fresh and exciting.

I don't agree about Mads and Rachel being underutilized for a 2h runtime. They were crucial to make the story work. I liked Mads in particular. I don't see many actors be able to make his character's teary-eyed scene work well together with his zealot scenes.

Swinton kicked ass. Cumberbatch was fun. And there was plenty of them.

Bring on the sequel!