Luke Owen reports on the concept trailer for Marvel’s Doctor Strange…
With Doctor Strange now in production (see set photos and videos here, here, here and here), we were lucky enough to be shown the concept art trailer for the movie which was shown at a sneak peek of Disney’s 2016 slate of films that also included Zootopia (or Zootropolis over here in the UK), Captain America: Civil War (looks awesome), The Jungle Book (Christopher Walken sounds silly) and Moana (looks like great fun).
Watch the video version of the Doctor Strange Concept Trailer Breakdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orZBAVqQhSc
The concept art trailer was likely a pitch reel, and featured interviews with director Scott Derrickson talking plot details while giving us a visual idea of what the film will look like. It was cut together like a trailer (including flash cards), but no actual footage was shown (this was shown to us weeks before the film went into production).
The footage opened with Derrickson giving us an overview of the plot, which surrounds Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Stephen Strange as the top neurosurgeon in the world, and we see him living in what looks like a penthouse apartment over looking New York City. Sadly however, he is in a car accident that renders his hands useless, meaning he can no longer be a neurosurgeon. Feeling like he has nothing else to give the world, Strange travels the globe before he discovers The Ancient One – played by Tilda Swinton – who teaches him in the mystical ways of The Dark Arts. From there the trailer gives us looks at Cumberbatch as Strange, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Baron Mordo and the worlds in which they’ll visit, while the title cards promises us that Doctor Strange will take us to “new corners and dimensions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe”.
Finally, after the Doctor Strange title appeared on screen, we saw Cumberbatch himself in pre-production training doing some martial arts movements while mystical light shot from his hands. It looked pretty cool.
You want to know about Cumberbatch as Strange right? Well from what we were shown in the concept art, he will be sporting the character’s trademark goatee as well as having the silver streak in his hair, and he really does look like the Stephen Strange from the comics. The concept art showed him in various costumes, which either means they’ve yet to settle on a design, or Doctor Strange will be having more wardrobe changes than your average host at the Oscars. All the costumes had one thing in common however: the red cape. Yes, even with the huge collar. Many of the costumes green, but there were a couple that had the trademark blue that looked like it had walked right out of one of Strange’s Silver Age comics.
As we said, there were various different costume designs so none of this is final, but it looks like Scott Derrickson and his team are taking the look of this character very seriously.
The concept art footage looked very cool, but it’s too early to tell if the film will follow suit. What we can say for sure though is that the movie will have a Guardians of the Galaxy feel, particularly with the worlds they are visiting. A lot of the concept art showed locations with lots of purple hues, that had a similar vibe to Morag, the planet Star Lord visits at the start of James Gunn’s space opera. That’s not saying they’re the same place, but they looked alike. The representative from Disney told us that this movie will take us to, “places we’ve never seen before”, and despite the comparisons to Morag the concept art shown seems to back that up. Our only reservation is whether people will take the film seriously – as this won’t have the comedic tone of Guardians of the Galaxy – and could therefore end up being the Green Lantern of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Doctor Strange is being directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister), while the cast includes Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) as Stephen Strange, Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer) as The Ancient One, Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) as Baron Mordo and Rachel McAdams (True Detective), Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal) and Amy Landecker (Transparent) in as-yet-unconfirmed roles.
Originally published November 16, 2015. Updated March 2, 2020.
