The Neil Gaiman / Guillermo del Toro Doctor Strange movie that kind-of, not-really almost was

[boingboing]

Originally published at: The Neil Gaiman / Guillermo del Toro Doctor Strange movie that kind-of, not-really almost was | Boing Boing

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[xkot]

I like that idea. It would have given Dr. Strange more of a “Lost Horizons” origin than he already had.

[Hanglyman]

Was 2007 before or after every project Guillermo del Toro proposes, mentions or even thinks about is immediately cancelled? I feel like “awesome thing that del Toro could have made if it hadn’t been shut down by soulless bean counters” is an entire genre of non-existent media at this point.

[DizBuster]

It would have been too close to what happened to Captain America, the man out of time thing. Personally, I want Guillermo Del Toro to do a Man-Thing movie in the everglades with Howard the Duck and Dr. Strange, and Robert Rodriguez to do a Ghost Rider movie!

[ghostbloke]

@boingboing

Gaiman, with typical graciousness, referred to the first Doctor Strange movie that Marvel did eventually produce, in 2016, and noted: “The way they did it commercially was better.”

I yield to all of Gaiman’s artistic opinions, but I disagree with him there.

I believe he means they changed all the Tibet stuff to Nepal to get the film shown in China for a larger audience and earn more money. Gaiman’s version presumably would have kept alcoholism as the reason for his car crash while maybe making the character more palatable by giving him a longer time to change. I think the, “don’t text and drive,” message in Derrickson’s film was tacked on, but Strange’s arrogance gets sanded off as you’re watching it. Especially by some of the ways Dormamu kills him in the time loop.

@Hanglyman

Was 2007 before or after every project Guillermo del Toro proposes, mentions or even thinks about is immediately cancelled?

There’s a Wikipedia article for that.

Guillermo del Toro's unrealized projects

[Brainspore]

@boingboing

This fascinates me because Doctor Strange would have been the perfect vehicle for these two geniuses to collaborate on: a superhero with a dark past, in the world of the occult.

No reason we still couldn’t get a similar movie; Gaiman and del Toro have enough Hollywood clout that they could probably get a studio to back something based on an original screenplay instead of recycled IP that would restrict what they could do with the characters. For example, The Shape of Water was originally conceived as a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake but Universal wouldn’t go for the fish sex stuff so del Toro just went ahead and made it anyway with a brand-new-and-totally-not-an-unauthorized-adaptation-of-The-Creature character.