20 facts you might not know about 'Doctor Strange'

Marvel used to have a production deal with New World Pictures, Roger Corman’s production company. During that time, Back to the Future co-writer Bob Gale wrote a screenplay for a Doctor Strange film in 1986. However, it never got past the script stage.

In 1989, Repo Man writer and director joined forces with Stan Lee to write a script involving Doctor Strange heading into the Fourth Dimension. This movie got close to being made by Regency Pictures. However, Regency had a distribution deal with Warner Bros., who had beef with Marvel over merchandising. This squashed this adaptation.

When Cox’s film got nixed, Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertainment bought the character rights. If you don’t know, Full Moon makes cheap, schlocky horror flicks. Band’s rights lapsed before anything went into production, but in 1992, Full Moon released a film called Doctor Mordrid. In a weird coincidence, Mordrid had a lot in common with Doctor Strange.

In 1992, Wes Craven was brought on to write and direct a Doctor Strange movie. In 1995, David Goyer then produced a script for that project. It didn’t go anywhere, but in 2001, another attempt at adaptation was going on, and Goyer was attached to write and direct. By 2002, though, he dropped out of the project.

Once Marvel made a deal with Paramount to produce their own movies, a lot of films got thrown into the mix. The duo of Guillermo del Toro and Neil Gaiman pitched on doing a Doctor Strange film, with Gaiman writing and del Toro directing. Their take, on-brand for both of them, would have seen Strange as an alcoholic, disbarred physician in the 1920s.

Marvel considered a few different directors for Doctor Strange, such as Mark Andrews, Scott Derrickson, and Jonathan Levine. Derrickson got the job, but he really worked on it. He said he spent an “obnoxious amount” of money out of his own pocket to storyboard and animate a scene of Doctor Strange fighting in the astral plane while another doctor tries to resuscitate his body. This got Derrickson the job, and it became a set piece in the final film.

In 2010, Marvel hired the team of Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write a script for Doctor Strange. However, they didn’t end up with credit for the final film. Derrickson and Robert Cargill, co-writer of his horror movie Sinister C., were going to take on the script, but Derrickson didn’t feel like he had the time to do both, and Marvel didn’t want Cargill solo. Instead, Jon Spaihts took a pass on the script. When the movie was delayed, Derrickson and Cargill did take a pass themselves. All three ended up with screenplay credit.

In 2011, when Marvel had just announced a screenplay was being written for Doctor Strange , one actor was already lobbying for the role. That would be Patrick Dempsey, who discussed his hopes of playing the doctor while promoting Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon.

When casting Stephen Strange, Derrickson, Spaihts, and the team at Marvell thought Cumberbatch would be ideal for the role. The internet was also afire with the idea. Then, Cumberbatch threw cold water on the situation. At Comic-Con in 2014, Cumberbatch said that, due to other commitments, he would not be able to take the role of Doctor Strange, leaving Marvel to look elsewhere.

With Cumberbatch unavailable, several actors were considered. Tom Hardy, Jared Leto, Edgar Ramirez, Ethan Hawke, Jake Gyllenhaal, and even more actors were in the mix. Eventually, they landed on Joaquin Phoenix to play Doctor Strange, but he pulled out because blockbuster movies weren’t “fulfilling.” Then, he made Joker.

If Cumberbatch couldn’t come to Marvel, Marvel would come to Cumberbatch. Derrickson said that even during the Phoenix negotiations, he and Marvel still dreamed of getting Cumberbatch for the role. When Phoenix backed out, Marvel decided they were willing to postpone shooting so that Cumberbatch could star in Doctor Strange.

Back in the day, Cumberbatch and Mads Mikkelsen were considered to play the villain in Thor: The Dark World. Neither took the part, but clearly, Marvel still liked both actors. Cumberbatch was cast as Doctor Strange, while Mikkelsen was cast as the villainous Kaecilius.

For the role of Christine Palmer, Marvel approached Jessica Chastain. Chastain declined, figuring that you only get one shot to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and she wanted it to be a lead role. Instead, Rachel McAdams took the role.

In addition to playing Doctor Strange, Cumberbatch got his Smaug on in an uncredited form. The actor plays Dormammu as well, providing the character's voice and motion capture. Marvel had actor Tony Todd do a voiceover as Dormammu, just in case, but opted to go with Cumberbatch’s performance.

In the Doctor Strange comics, Strange learned the mystical arts in Tibet. However, if you refer to Tibet with any sense of autonomy, you will run the risk of being censored or banned by the Chinese government. The Kamar-Taj was moved from Tibet to Nepal, and the film was shot in Nepal. Some locations they had planned were destroyed in an earthquake, but they decided to film there anyway in hopes of shining some light on the country in the wake of the natural disaster.

Chiwetel Ejiofor was cast as Baron Mordo, which opened the door to an actor friend of his. Wong heard about Doctor Strange after Ejiofor was cast and decided to seek out a part. He was cast, fittingly, as Wong and started shooting pretty much immediately. Wong has factored into the MCU quite a bit, so Wong is probably happy his friend told him.

Waititi was hired to direct Thor: Ragnarok, but upon seeing the sets built for Doctor Strange, he wanted to make use of them. Before production began on his film, he shot a scene with the Doctor Strange sets for his movie. However, Marvel felt like it was a perfect scene to introduce Strange to the MCU, so it was chosen as the mid-credits scene for Doctor Strange instead.

As a film built on special effects and trippy imagery, a big screen made sense. Like, a REALLY big screen. When Doctor Strange was released, it set a record for the most IMAX screens a film had ever debuted on, becoming the first movie to cross the 1,000-screen mark on that front.

With the help of all those IMAX screens, Doctor Strange made $232.6 million domestically and $677.8 million worldwide. It was, at the time, the highest-grossing Marvel film that served as an introduction to a single character. That’s a lot of caveats but still impressive. Now, Doctor Strange is second on that front behind Captain Marvel. Black Panther made more money, but of course, he debuted in Captain America: Civil War.

All those special effects in Doctor Strange got some love. The movie was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars but did not win. Interestingly, the film earned three BAFTA nominations, but it did not win any. Its most significant award is probably taking home Best Comic-to-Film Motion Picture from the Saturn Awards.