Marvel Delayed Doctor Strange:
Doctor Strange is surely one of Marvel’s greater films. It was quite unique in its own way and we totally loved the actors who starred in the movie. It’s just sad that the likes of Scott Adkins & Mads Mikkelsen were wasted on secondary villains. Both of them have the capability to portray much better roles than they got. But it doesn’t matter. People didn’t go to watch this film because of these two actors. They saw it because Benedict Cumberbatch was the face of it. His casting as Doctor Strange is absolutely spot on. There was a chance for him to not be a part of the MCU as Doctor Strange, but Marvel was not willing to take that chance.
Everyone knows how talented Benedict Cumberbatch is. His ability to do impersonations is nice and that’s what allowed him to not only play Doctor Strange, but also Dormammu. He was obviously pretty experienced with motion capture, so he did it for Dormammu as well. Even moving forward with the MCU, Benedict Cumberbatch is going to play a key role. He is as important to the MCU as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is to the larger narrative of MCU’s story. This is why Marvel was willing to delay Doctor Strange, so Benedict Cumberbatch could star in the film.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is going to release exactly after 5 years. It recently suffered a 6 month delay. The first film also suffered a delay. Originally, Marvel was talking to Joker star Joaquin Phoenix about being MCU’s Doctor Strange. Here’s what Phoenix had to say on turning down Doctor Strange:
“I think they make some great, fun movies. There’s nothing wrong… I’m not a fucking, like, cinephile. I’m not a snob and I’m totally fine with… I enjoy those movies sometimes, and I think they keep the fucking industry going in some ways, so I don’t have a problem with it at all. I think that everybody was, is… I’m trying to figure out how to say this most diplomatically, okay… I think everybody was really happy with how things turned out. All parties were satisfied.”
It is known that Marvel has a lot of control over their characters. Yes they do consider the suggestions that the actors have to put in, but they’re the ones who make the final call. In the case of Phoenix, he is used to working with directors that allow him to do his own thing and improvise. That’s why Phoenix worked better as Joker & wouldn’t have been a great choice for Doctor Strange. Marvel then approached Benedict Cumberbatch but he was also busy. Their next best option was Ryan Gosling but we’re glad that Marvel was able to stick to Cumberbatch instead.
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Cumberbatch rose to fame with Sherlock, and at the time Marvel wanted to roll cameras, Cumberbatch was contracted to play Sherlock Holmes. So, Marvel instead delayed the production of Doctor Strange by 5 whole months. They got Benedict and we got the best possible Doctor Strange movie. This revelation comes from Scott Derrickson himself, who is praising the recent delay in production for Doctor Strange 2. The delay in the first movie allowed writer Robert C. Cargill & the director to get the story right. And now, similar would be the case for Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi, who has helmed Doctor Strange 2 after Marvel & Scott Derrickson parted ways.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is obviously going to need its proper time to get the story right because there are a lot of elements involved apart from Doctor Strange himself. Multiple characters are supposed to appear, then there’s the whole Multiverse aspect. So, the delay would work in the favor of Doctor Strange 2. The movie is now scheduled to arrive on November 5, 2021.
