On the latest Meet The Movie Press Podcast, our good friend- and overall reliable source- Devin Faraci made an interesting revelation about the direction that Marvel Studios is heading in. After discussing how the old script that Marvel had been tossing around for Doctor Strange has now ended up in the recycle bin, he drops this tidbit:

“Marvel’s new thing is no more origin stories. So Doctor Strange’s movie no longer has an origin. It begins in media res [literary term for “in the midst of things”]. It’s got Doctor Strange all ready established as The Sorcerer Supreme. It’s a totally new script […] without any of the previous stuff. They’re not even touching the previous script.”

El Mayimbe read the previous script, and published a multi-part review of it right here on LR. It definitely told a more standard origin story and featured Baron Mordo as the villain. But what’s interesting here isn’t so much that they’re going in a new direction with Doctor Strange, but that Faraci thinks that Marvel Studios- as a whole- will be moving away from origin stories.

This is an important evolutionary step that I’ve touched on before, and I’m glad to see Marvel is going for it. I’ve always maintained that the only way that the comic book movie craze in Hollywood can remain sustainable- and not burn itself into the ground with the recent onslaught of titles announced by Marvel, WB/DC, and Sony- is if it continues to tinker with the formula. If it keeps following the same mold of Origin Story, Sequel With More Villains, Sequel With Identity Crisis, etc then there’s no way people will keep buying in. 

Glad to see that Marvel is ready to continue shaking things up.

You can view the entire podcast below. Faraci’s comments on this subject can be found at around the 52 minute mark: