Neil Gaiman sheds more light on the idea he and Guillermo del Toro devised for a potential DoctorStrange movie before the MCU came to be.
New details regarding Guillermo del Toro's rejected Doctor Strange pitch have been revealed by his almost-collaborator Neil Gaiman. Thanks to 2016's Doctor Strange, its 2022 sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and his appearance in other MCU films, the character of Doctor Stephen Strange is now more popular than ever.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY Attempts at a Doctor Strange movie had been considered for years at various studios, including Full Moon Entertainment, Dimension Films, and Miramax before Marvel Studios gained the rights back in 2005. While Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was filming, The Sandman creator Gaiman visited the set, and both he and del Toro talked about the possibility of making a Doctor Strange movie.
"Kevin and I have spoken a few times over the years on things.
Marvel Studios opted to put the focus on characters like Captain America and Thor, with Doctor Strange not properly entering development until 2010 when the first screenwriters were hired. Del Toro, meanwhile, would collaborate with Marvel Studios, attempting to develop a Hulk television series. Unfortunately, the project never made it past development.
What's fascinating about del Toro and Gaiman's pitch of Doctor Strange being from the 1920s or 1930s is that it is very similar to Edgar Wright's idea for Ant-Man to have Hank Pym be a superhero in the 1960s, and also Peyton Reed's original Fantastic Four pitch at Fox, which was a 1960s set period piece.