Neil Gaiman reflected on his and Guillermo del Toro’s pitch for a Doctor Strange movie.
Years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even established with Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, Neil Gaiman and Guillermo del Toro had interest in bringing Doctor Strange to life on the big screen. So much so, that they even pitched an idea for the film to Kevin Feige.
Neil Gaiman is currently experiencing much notoriety thanks to Netflix’s adaptation of his acclaimed comic book series, The Sandman. With a resurgence of interest in his work, naturally some are curious about how projects with the biggest franchise in the world, Marvel, may have crossed his path. Well, during an appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, he reflected on his pitch for that would’ve had Guillermo del Toro directing it:
“Kevin and I have spoken a few times over the years on things. The only one that I wish, although, odds are probably, I think the way they did it commercially was better than…but I remember back in 2007, having minimalistic conversations with Kevin Feige about ‘What about Doctor Strange?’ Then talking to Guillermo del Toro, and Guillermo and I having these ideas about Doctor Strange and starting the beginning, me starting the beginning of the conversation with Kevin about ‘I could do Doctor Strange with Guillermo.’ And basically, they said ‘We just want to concentrate on the core characters right now. Doctor Strange is way up the line, we don’t want to go there.'”
What story was Neil Gaiman and Guillermo Del Toro pitching?
Neil Gaiman also revealed the type of Doctor Strange story he and Guillermo Del Toro were pitching:
“There were some cool things in it. My favorite Doctor Strange thing was the idea of…the one thing that we really wanted to do was have his adventures, have him become an alcoholic and a disbarred physician, all that sort of stuff, happen in the 1920s. So the idea is that, he went though all of that and the training to become the world’s greatest magician maybe in the early ’30s, late ’20s, and he’s been living in Greenwich Village for 90 years looking the same in his place, and nobody really notices. We just sort of liked that idea, and he would have been sort of out of time. But other than that, it would have just been very sort of Steve Ditko, because, you know, that’s the best.”
Here is the synopsis for Multiverse of Madness:
The MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.
Directed by Sam Raimi from a script written by Michael Waldron, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Rachel McAdams.
Multiverse of Madness is now available to own on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD, and is also streaming exclusively on Disney+. Be sure to continue following Heroic Hollywood for all the latest news on the future of Neil Gaiman and Guillermo del Toro, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more original video content!
Source: Happy Sad Confused (via TheDirect.com)
