Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson is hoping major studios bring more originality to superhero movies.
Speaking with ComicBook.com while promoting the upcoming V/H/S/85, Derrickson spoke on the current state of comic book movies and what he believes audiences are looking for out of the genre.
“I do think that we’re at a point in time where audiences, and myself included, don’t want to see anything that’s too close to what’s been done,” he said. “I’m much more interested in the daring spin-offs than the daring genre experimentation with comic book cinema. I think that’s the way you get audiences to reengage with it is by evolving it significantly. That would be my big requirement to go back into that kind of IP-driven comic book world.”
He continued, “You can make something that’s original and people haven’t seen before from IP, but it has to be the right IP, and you have to be willing to treat it with originality. But I do think that audiences want original programming in their event movies now. That is a major shift that has happened, and it’s significant, and I just hope that studios don’t continue to flog the sequel franchise filmmaking in a way that costs us more time before they realize, hey, the audiences are really ready for new material.”
Scott Derrickson on why he made Doctor Strange for Marvel
Derrickson directed and co-wrote Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch in 2016. He’s also known for making 2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, 2012’s Sinister, and 2021’s The Black Phone.
As to why Derrickson was interested in making Doctor Strange, he said, “I didn’t make Doctor Strange because it was a Marvel movie or because it was a comic book movie. I made it because it was specifically the Doctor Strange comics, which I loved, and had really strong, powerful feelings about, and felt like I was the right filmmaker to adapt that.”
