Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson recently reaffirmed that he exited the movie’s sequel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, over creative differences and that there is “no bad blood” between him and Marvel Studios over the decision.
In an interview with The Playlist‘s The Discourse podcast, Derrickson confirmed that he left Multiverse of Madness because he had a different vision for the follow-up to the 2016 Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Doctor Strange. “All I can say is that what we said publicly is exactly the truth,” explained Derrickson. “We had real creative differences. You know, the movie I wanted to make and how I wanted to make it was different than-it was just increasingly obvious that we were pulling against each other. And that’s how you make a really bad movie, I think. When the producer or the studio and the filmmaker are making different movies, you end up with a monstrosity and, you know, that’s why I had to bounce.”
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Derrickson was initially announced to be returning as director for Multiverse of Madness in December 2018. However, he exited the project in January 2020 over reported creative differences. Sam Raimi eventually replaced him as director. Derrickson revealed to The Discourse that his version of the MCU sequel would have been an “extreme departure from the first film” and “a genuine horror film of sorts.” Despite exiting the MCU, Derrickson stated that he is “still friends with Kevin [Feige] and everything with me and Marvel is really cool,” adding that “there’s no bad blood over that.”
While Derrickson is perhaps best known among casual movie-goers for directing Doctor Strange, the acclaimed filmmaker got his start helming horror flicks like Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Sinister (2012). After exiting Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Derrickson co-wrote and directed The Black Phone (2021), an adaptation of the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill. While Derrickson is not currently attached to another superhero property, the director has ruled out a return to the blockbuster genre.
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“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,” he recently explained. “So I would for sure go back to comic book cinema if I was working with something that I felt was a good evolution of the genre.”
Doctor Strange and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness are available to stream on Disney+.
Source: The Playlist
Scott Derrickson opens up about the creative differences that led to him exiting Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as director. Read More