Marvel Picks 'Conan' Writers for 'Doctor Strange'

Not even a day after it was suggested that Marvel and Disney might go the short film route to introduce less familiar comic book stars to mainstream audiences, Marvel Studios has grabbed Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write Doctor Strange, which would actually be the quintessential project to develop as a short film first. Don't get me wrong, the Doc is a great character. But so's Punisher, and look how that turned out. The idea behind the short films would be a hook-baiting, and if audiences bite, you make a feature film. I'm just not confident moviegoers will really go for it. It's a bit nebulous, what with its excursion to mountaintops to learn psychic powers, and hell, psychic powers. That's not exactly a ticket seller. As Deadline points out, "His mind is his weapon, rather than the brute force that distinguish most memorable Marvel heroes." Exactly. Donnelly and Oppenheimer worked on the Conan reboot, and Doctor Strange will likely be the first Disney/Marvel collaboration, which makes it an even odder duck. Disney, not exactly known for testing the waters with material that could land with a thud, might be doing exactly that here. Sure, a lot of the major players have been spoken for through the Paramount, Fox, and Sony deals, but as Option A...I think it could be a tough sell. That's a different argument than whether or not it could be good, but let's face it, if Disney were faced with either a good movie or a profitable movie, which do you think it would choose nine times out of ten?

Comments

[Jace]

They just did a full length animated Dr. Strange a couuple years ago. It was pretty good and introduced the character. Why the need for a short film?? Sure it would be good, but it's basically been done.

[Get The Big Picture]

Then by that token, so has the full-length, no?