Another innovative director bites the dust as Scott Derrickson parts ways with Marvel over creative differences with Doctor Strange and The Multiverse of Madness.
This one hurt.
When Derrickson was announced for the first movie I was beyond excited, Marvel had hired a horror movie director and I couldn’t wait to see what would come from it. Unfortunately, what we got was a pretty tame version of the Sorcerer Supreme that was packaged so safe you could almost feel the bubble wrap.
I was a bit disappointed, but still it wasn’t a terrible movie and it had a great cast. Besides Marvel has a track record of playing a movie a bit safe before releasing more control to their directors (Captain America: Winter Soldier is a perfect example of this).
Time went on and the next couple of times we saw Strange was in Thor Ragnarok and Avengers Infinity War — I was filled with hope as I saw both Waititi and the Russo Brothers dive into the weirdness of the character and actually let him do some magic.
And then the icing on the cake: Comic-Con happened and the title for Strange’s sequel was released Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. A title that was weird, 80s-esque and best of all, Derrickson described it as Marvel’s first horror movie. I was floored.
Then the news came in a few months later that Derrickson had left the project. While he’s still remaining on as executive producer, I’m guessing that’s in-name-only.
It got me thinking though, why doesn’t Disney trust their directors? Thankfully, Marvel seems way more open to playing ball than Lucasfilm does (currently Lucasfilm has fired around ten directors within five years), but Marvel is definitely not without fault here either.
2015’s Ant-Man was ready to start shooting when Edgar Wright left the project for the same reasons. Now I get that big studios want to make sure they maximize their box-office returns, but it’s strange to me that Marvel seems to want to take chances with their flagship Avengers series, but play it so safe with their lesser-known characters.
You would think they would have learned their lesson with Thor after the wildly successful Ragnarok.
Oh well, at the end of the day the movie hasn’t come out yet and hopefully, it’s still as good and innovative as it can be.
