If you follow my blog, it’s no secret that I love talking with directors. Their vision being made into a reality to share with the world – it amazes me. So when Director Scott Derrickson sat down to chat with us during the Doctor Strange press junket, I instantly got a James Gunn vibe, and I knew I would like this guy.
Director Scott Derrickson
Scott Derrickson has been writing and directing for years. Mostly mind-twisting, insanely scary horror stories that are known to haunt you for days like Deliver Us from Evil and Sinister. For Doctor Strange, he succeeds at keeping up with the mind-twisting, but you can replace the insanely scary to insanely trippy, for this movie has – hands down – the best in effects I’ve ever experienced in a film.
Scott walks into the room and embracing the applause.
This is the greatest panel in the history of panels. Oh my gosh. This is awesome.
Well, this might be one of the most visually amazing special effects films ever seen. How much work went into that?
It took a long time developing them. It was one of the most creative parts of the whole process because the idea going into it was to use visual effects for a new reason than what you usually get in big event movies. In big event movies, even in Marvel movies, special effects are usually used to destroy things.
It’s about destroying cities because that’s what creates screen stimulus. And I just felt committed to the idea of using those big expensive visual effects for something else, something new, something more interesting, and specifically, something trippy, and weird. And to give the audience an unexpected experience.
It worked.
The 60’s feel from the original comic has been perfectly captured. Was there ever talk to update to today’s time?
Well, the ’60s comics were the primary influence for the movie, for sure. Those early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comics were very much products of the ’60s and the ’60s psychedelia. The weird imagery of the movie is so rooted in the Steve Ditko artwork from that era. I listened to almost nothing but psychedelic rock from that era, while I was working on this screenplay. I mean, it’s why there’s one track in there that’s from the first Pink Floyd album, back in their early psychedelic days.
Summoning his cosmic powers
And glowing slightly from his toes
The psychic emanations fly
– Pink Floyd, 1968 pic.twitter.com/V1hPkWRg3y— Scott Derrickson (@scottderrickson) October 12, 2016
What I wanted to do was to not make a throwback movie or a nostalgic movie. I didn’t want to try to go back and recapture the ’60s revolution feel, but I wanted to have that same mindset of open your mind, expand your mind, see things new. You know, look at a new aesthetic and explore possibilities. And so that was the goal, to take that ’60s mentality, and then bring it into a modern superhero movie and do it with a character who was about something, hopefully meaningful.
While speaking with Tilda this morning, she said to ask you about your choice in choosing a woman for the Ancient one.
That choice was twofold. The first reason was that I was trying to find ways, creative ways, and positive ways, to escape the racial stereotypes from the original comics. You know, they were products of the ’60s for good and bad, those comics. For bad, the Ancient One, and Wong, those two characters were pretty offensive racial stereotypes, by modern standards. Wong’s character, I was able to completely reinvent.
I sort of inverted his character. Everything about his character in the comics, I just flipped on its head. Instead of a man servant, he’s a master of the mystic arts. Instead of a sidekick, he’s Strange’s intellectual mentor. So that was great. With the Ancient One, I couldn’t do that. The Ancient One, for the original story to work, still had to be a magical, mystical, domineering, martial arts mentor, to Doctor Strange.
So the first thing I wanted to do is make it a woman. And I thought, okay, that’s fresh. And I did that to get away from the cliché and the stereotype, but I also did that because I wanted a woman Tilda’s age. You know, I wanted a woman who wasn’t the 26-year-old, tightly leather-clad, hot, fanboy dream girl. I wanted to have a real woman in the movie, regarding trying to get diversity in there. I thought about casting an Asian woman. We had lots of discussion about that.
But I couldn’t get away from the stereotype of the Dragon Lady. If you know anything about American cinema and the portrayal of the Dragon Lady, the anime movies and all that. I felt like a trap. So then I started thinking, well who could bring the ethereal, enigmatic, mystical qualities of the Ancient One, from the comics, that are good? And I was like, Tilda.
Who else could it be? And, an interesting story about that is that I was trying to write the role, and it was the one role in the movie that was flat, it was just a flat role. It just, every version I did of it was just not great. It was not working. And then when I came up with the idea in my head about Tilda doing it, suddenly the role came to life, and I wrote it, without her knowing anything about the movie, or knowing that I was interested in her doing it, I wrote it for her, and it was great. And I remember bringing the script — I remember what room I was in, I remember bringing the script to Kevin and handing it to him, saying, okay, this role is great now, but it has to be Tilda Swinton that plays it. And if it’s not her, we’re going to have to rewrite it again.
Because I didn’t feel like anybody, but she could do the role as, I wrote it.
Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch)
Photo Credit: Film Frame ©2016 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.
This is very rare, but the five lead roles, we got our first choice on every one of them. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me where our first choice for each role, we just were able to get. It usually doesn’t happen, for no other reason, because of availability.
But it just turned out that all of our first choices were available, and they all wanted to do it when they heard what the movie was. Once we got Benedict, of course, he’s kind of an actor magnet.
Other actors want to work with him, so there was that. But then when I would meet with them and explain the movie, they got excited, I think at what it was that we were trying to do. Like Tilda, I remember Tilda got excited because she understood, I wasn’t making an experimental movie. She doesn’t care about how big a movie is. She could care less. She cares how interesting it is.
The Ancient One has some powerful lines and a great message. As a mom, this is a film I want my kids to see.
Well, we’ve been to two major cities on the press tour, and we’re now in the press here. And I haven’t said this to anybody, but my biggest personal motive for making the movie is that I have two boys, who are now, 13 and 10. They were 11 and eight when I started. They’re huge Marvel fans. And I wanted to make a movie that would surprise them, but also a movie that would leave an impression on them. What I think are some of the most important things in life. And that’s where a lot of that came from.
So we’ve been hearing that you’re a big comic book fan.
Yeah.
How did you land your dream job?
I went after the job hard. Like, really hard. I had eight meetings to get the job. So it’s a very thorough process they go through in hiring their directors.I grew up with Marvel comics. Doctor Strange is my favorite comic. And when I heard they were making it, I felt like it was the only comic book character I was uniquely suited to do.
And then when I went in for the first meeting, I had my opinion about what a Doctor Strange movie should be, and I felt very strongly about it. And when I went in for the first meeting, I was amazed at how in line my thinking about the comic was with theirs. And that was the point where I just, it was almost like a switch flipped in my brain, and I just said, I’m getting this job, and I’m going to outwork everyone on the presentation. I wrote the astral fight that they have in the hospital – I wrote that 12-page scene before my second meeting.
Then illustrated it, and I spent a lot of money on concept art, ‘cause I went in with a full vision, and just said, here’s what a Doctor Strange movie should be. They were in alignment. I love that comic so much. And, and the movie is so true to the comics. You know, it so obviously feels the way the comics feel and is true to that origin story.
The consensus of many fans is that this is a huge game-changer for the Marvel cinematic universe. Did you have that feeling when you went into this project? How did you see this affecting the MCU, going forward?
I don’t know how it will affect the MCU because that’s Kevin Feige. He’s the auteur of the MCU, regarding, he’s the captain of the ship, steering the ship. I’m friends with the Russos. I know what the stories of Infinity War are going to be, so I have some sense of it. But when I made this and went in to get the job, I approached it as a fan. I mean, I’m a comic book fan first on this movie. I’m a movie fan before I’m a filmmaker.
I just know the way I felt about superhero movies, which was, okay, this is a golden era of comic book cinema. It’s the most significant populist cinema in the world, but it’s reached a saturation point, of the kinds of movies that we’ve seen. We’ve got to do something new and fresh. It’s got to evolve, or it’s going to decline. And, when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy, I was like, ah, touchdown, you know?
I was so elated. That was my favorite movie of that year because it was so unexpectedly fresh and new. It was so weirdly, uniquely, James Gunn, that it took me about half an hour to get used to the sense of humor. Like, when you first watch that movie, it’s not funny at. First, it’s just weird.
And then, and then when you realize how funny it is and it gets funnier and funnier. Every time you see it, it becomes funnier, still. So, as a fan, going into Doctor Strange, I wanted to make the kind of comic book movie I wanted to see, which was a hard left turn.
Which was a bold and fearless leap into the surreal, with some strong meaning? Some depth of ideas and still fun, still a Marvel character. With a little more originality and ambition than what we’ve been seeing, lately. Because that’s what I wanted as a fan, that’s what everybody wants. And if I hit that target for my taste, I have to believe it’ll satisfy other people as well.
The translation of Ditko’s art is, like, amazing.
I don’t think that we could’ve done that, even three or four years ago. It’s like, visual effects have finally caught up with Steve Ditko, you know?
Yeah.
You haven’t seen that artwork ripped off in other movies, because you couldn’t. I mean, you literally couldn’t do it, even if you wanted to. The time was right; the technology is one of the reasons why this movie now, as well. Because it’s finally time to, we can do this kind of crazy stuff.
It’s mind blowing. It really is.
Good. That’s the word. That, that was the goal.
DOCTOR STRANGE (11/4/16)
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*I was invited by Disney and Marvel to attend a press junket covering Doctor Strange. All opinions are my own.
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