FILM · 2016 · USA
Doctor Strange
- Directed by
- Scott Derrickson
- Runtime
- 115 min
- Studio
- Marvel Studios
242 archived facts 7 topics 2 sources Last reviewed Sep 2026
After his career is destroyed, a brilliant but arrogant surgeon gets a new lease on life when a sorcerer takes him under her wing and trains him to defend the world against evil.
Summary: TMDB
28 Facts From the Making of Doctor Strange
- #076
Although he was not credited in the titles, Dan Harmon was a consultant and revised the script during post-production and reshoots.
- #146
Co-writer and director Scott Derrickson had eight meetings with Marvel to get the job. "I remember counting them." Like many other candidates, he brought a special vision to his pitch, and this clearly drew the interest of Kevin Feige and others. Derrickson credits Feige for handing the keys to these massive films to directors like James Gunn and the Russo brothers, and says most studios would not have considered them or him for the job. His only big-budget experience was The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), which had less than half of this film's budget. "They respect passion, experience, and talent."
- #173
Because of the short post-production schedule, they used a large number of visual effects houses.
- #189
Scott Derrickson self-financed a 90-minute presentation to Marvel explaining why he should direct the film. Its centerpiece was the scene in which Christine Palmer fights to save Doctor Strange on the operating table while simultaneously battling an attacker on the astral plane around her. After eight more meetings with Marvel, Derrickson finally got the job, with the centerpiece included in the final film.
- #205
A Doctor Strange film was first listed as in development at New World Pictures, with a script dated January 21, 1986, written by Bob Gale, but it never advanced into production.
- #206
By 1989, Alex Cox had co-written a Doctor Strange script with Marvel Comics' Stan Lee in which the character travels to the Fourth Dimension and faces the villain Dormammu on Easter Island, Chile.
- #207
A Doctor Strange film using that script was nearly made by Regency, but the company's films were then distributed by Warner Bros., which was in a merchandising dispute with Marvel.
- #208
Producer Charles Band optioned the Doctor Strange property from Marvel and began developing a film at Full Moon Entertainment, but the option lapsed before production and the project became the 1992 film Doctor Mordrid, whose title character resembled Doctor Strange.
- #209
Columbia dropped its planned Doctor Strange film by April 2000, when Michael France was attached to write the script and Chuck Russell and Stephen Norrington had shown interest in directing.
- #210
Paramount Pictures acquired Doctor Strange from Miramax Films in April 2005 as part of Marvel Studios' push to produce its own films, with the project then projected at a budget of no more than $165 million.
- #211
In 2007 Guillermo del Toro and Neil Gaiman pitched Marvel a Doctor Strange version written by Gaiman and directed by del Toro, imagining the character as an alcoholic, disbarred physician in the late 1920s or early 1930s who had lived in Greenwich Village for 90 years without aging; the studio was not interested.
- #212
In March 2009, Marvel engaged writers to develop creative approaches for launching its lesser-known properties, among them Doctor Strange.
- #213
Marvel Studios brought on Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer in June 2010 to write Doctor Strange.
- #215
Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, confirmed in January 2013 that Doctor Strange would feature in some form during Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- #216
Scott Derrickson was selected to direct Doctor Strange in June 2014.
- #217
Scott Derrickson wrote a 12-page scene for Doctor Strange in which Strange and an attacker battle on the astral plane while a doctor tries to save Strange's physical body in a hospital, drawing on a sequence from the comic Doctor Strange: The Oath.
- #218
Scott Derrickson presented a 90-minute pitch to the studio for Doctor Strange, using his own concept art for the sequence alongside storyboards from professional artists and an animatic; the preparation cost him an "obnoxious amount" of his own money, which he considered necessary to show he wanted the job more than anyone, especially after Marvel told him more people had lobbied to direct Doctor Strange than any of their other films.
- #219
Scott Derrickson had eight meetings with Marvel about Doctor Strange, and after he was hired the studio bought his 12-page scene, which became one of the film's main set pieces.
- #224
Marvel initially discussed having Scott Derrickson write Doctor Strange with his Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill while also directing, but the studio believed it could not meet its intended July 2016 release date if Derrickson took both roles.
- #225
After Scott Derrickson was chosen to direct Doctor Strange, Marvel did not hire C. Robert Cargill as a solo writer and instead brought in Jon Spaihts to rewrite the script.
- #226
Jon Spaihts, a childhood fan of Doctor Strange, contacted Marvel as soon as he read reports that the company was searching for a director, and met with the studio before it began looking for writers.
- #227
Jon Spaihts was initially told Marvel was unsure about his direction for Doctor Strange and would consider other writers, but after further talks he was given the job, and Marvel never seriously looked at another writer for the film.
- #228
Writing on Doctor Strange began from scratch, with the team initially undecided between an origin story and starting with Stephen Strange already a fully formed sorcerer; Jon Spaihts said the character's operatic, tragic and epic comic-book origin made it unavoidable to tell that story in their best version.
- #229
Jon Spaihts stated that elements of his early Doctor Strange drafts survived into the finished film, including many set pieces such as the climactic battle, which came straight from Scott Derrickson, and small touches like a bandaged hand running down a row of prayer bells in a Nepalese temple.
- #233
Doctor Strange's intended release date was pushed back to November 2016 under the film's new production schedule, which allowed Scott Derrickson to work on the script himself.
- #234
Cargill described Doctor Strange as both a superhero film and a fantasy film, calling it a very magical fantasy universe that also plays by some of the superhero tropes people enjoy.
- #235
Feige and Derrickson noted that the Doctor Strange comic book Into Shamballa, along with The Oath and Steve Ditko's original work, influenced all of the film's writers.
- #240
James Gunn stated in September 2015 that many crew members from Guardians of the Galaxy could not return for its sequel because they had committed to Doctor Strange.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Doctor Strange (2016 film) — Wikipedia
- IMDb IMDb
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