At one point or another in the last year or so, folks took a comment Marvel honcho Kevin Feige said to mean that the studio was done telling origin stories. Feige, however, says not so fast. The producer spoke to IGN, clarifying his stance on the matter, and pointing to what the studio is doing with Doctor Strange as an example of how- and why- origin stories will still be a thing.

“For some reason people sometimes talked about how we’re not doing an origin story, we’re bored of origin stories. I think people are bored of origin stories they’ve seen before or origin stories that are overly familiar,” Feige said. “Doctor Strange has one of the best, most classic, most unique origin stories of any hero we have, so why wouldn’t we dothat? That was sort of always the plan. How you tell that origin, perhaps there are ways to twist it or play with that, but for the most part, it’s a gift when the comics have something with such clarity of story and of character. That doesn’t always happen in the comics, and when it does, you use it.“

He was then asked about the unexplored territory that the Doctor Strange film is going to explore- things like the quantum zone, which was first seen in Ant-Man, and the more supernatural elements of the character’s story. These sorts of fantastical sci-fi elements will be somewhat new to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so Feige was asked if someone like Rachel McAdams’s character was going to be used as the audience’s “way in” to the story. But Feige says that, despite being a Sorcerer and a larger-than-life entity, Doctor Strange will very much be the audience’s guide through this tale.

“She plays a very, very big part in the movie and represents a certain point of view of the worlds that we experience in that movie, but Doctor Strange, without a doubt, is the character we follow through the movie,” Feige said on the matter.

And what about Tilda Swinton? Her casting as The Ancient One had tongues wagging, and fans fuming- since the character as always been depicted as male. But Feige points to the fact that the actress has a history of playing roles in a somewhat androgynous way that the filmmakers think will make for a riveting take on the character.

Feige says that with Swinton “we get an amazing actress to play an amazing character, and do it in a way that’s very unique and doesn’t fall into any outdated stereotypes that sometimes pop up in the comics from years past. It’s funny you ask ‘Will Tilda Swinton be playing a woman?’ and you ask it because she does an amazing job of being sort of ambiguous in terms of gender. I think you’ll see us playing it in ways that she’s played other characters that way. Clearly she’s a woman, but it is very ambiguous in her portrayal.“

Marvel’s Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, will premiere on November 4, 2016. 

SOURCE: IGN