KMC Forums - Dr.Strange gets a Movie!

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While talking to Marvel�s Craig Kyle at Comic-Con last week about the company�s new feature, Ultimate Avengers 2, the animation VP also filled Now Playing in on the company�s next direct-to-video project, a cartoon version of Iron Man (click here to read about that). But he didn�t stop there, for Kyle also gave us the scoop on what will be the next film in Marvel�s DTV animated series after that: Doctor Strange.

�The fourth one is Doctor Strange,� says Kyle with a laugh. �It�s great. People are like, �Whoa, Doctor Strange. That�s such a left turn!� But for us, every one of these films has been different. We�ve done this spectacular save-the-world team story that�s very gritty and very dark and very moody and foreboding, just like the guys in the comics created it. And then you go into an origin story of Iron Man and you bring in all of this wonderful storytelling that�s unlike anything you have in the team book. And now Doctor Strange shows that Marvel�s not just about mutants and radioactive characters: It has sorcery and mysticism and magic and creatures from other worlds.�

Doctor Strange, you will recall, is the Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel universe, a former surgeon who, after a devastating car accident, suffered damage to his hands which left him unable to perform in the operating room anymore. He turned to the mystic arts, and became a master of them, while also evolving from an arrogant chump to an all-around good guy.

Image�Here�s a character that starts off a jerk, and the middle of the way [through the story] he�s a jerk,� explains Kyle. �He�s the guy you don�t like, and it�s a great job to try to find the story that can ask you to get behind this guy. There�s a reason for all this darkness and he�s a man who kind of lost his way on a destiny he never knew he had but has been yanked back to it because of a tragic accident. And in some ways, you look at him and say, �Hey, you deserved it, man. You should have had that car accident because you sucked.� And it�s great to have that kind of a character where you�re not rooting for him, and he�s not Peter Parker, and you don�t want this guy to get the girl, and you want to see him fail. You�re glad to see his hands get smashed! It�s that great thing where it�s not that classic hero where you feel for him from the beginning. You�ve really got to get to know and love this guy.�

Kyle says that part of the challenge of a character like Doctor Strange is in the portrayal of his powers � the guy can do practically anything after all.

�The credit goes to [writer] Greg Johnson,� he says, �and the beautiful job he did taking what was already there and finding a way to really make a wonderful story and figure out the laws of magic, so it�s not just, �A magic word can do anything I want.� Because it�s really tricky. You�ve got a guy who can say and do anything he wants with a wave of his hand. What are you going to put him up against?�

Part of the workaround regarding Strange�s powers involves the magical characters having mastery over only certain types of elements or objects. So if Clea (Doctor Strange�s main squeeze), say, has control over water, she would not have control over metal. Her enemy might, however. Still, Doctor Strange will be able to magically wield multiple sources at once (he is the master of the mystic arts, after all). And as Kyle points out, it�s specifically Strange�s world of magic that drew the Marvel team to the character for their next film.

Image�That�s a spectacular world, so these [films] are to show the breadth of Marvel�s characters and worlds you can enter when you grab these books off the shelves,� he says. �You never know what you�re going to get, and we always just want to find the best stories and the best characters. It�s magic, it�s heroics, and villainy from every place in the world and the universe and other dimensions, and that�s why we think that with these first four [films] we really kind of give you a nice slice of life.�

As with the Iron Man film, Doctor Strange will offer a different look than what audiences have already seen in the Ultimate Avengers universe.

�When you see Doctor Strange it�s going to have its own look, and even though [Iron Man director] Frank Paur oversaw it, he found a different style for it,� says Kyle. �A very different world, a different look. And the reason again is if we ever did a sequel, we want it to be just a flash on TV and you go, �Oh my God, Doctor Strange is at it again!� That instant connection to the audience and the story. So that�s why they�ll have to be unique and different. We�re just starting to talk about five and six [in the series] and it�s again going to be a very different approach to those as well: Keep it fresh, keep it different. We never want people to feel like, �Eh, we�ve already seen that, I�m done with this.� It�s just keep new kinds of entertainment [coming] from every direction happening.�

Doctor Strange is tentatively planned for a late 2007 release.