While promoting his newly released graphic novel Spider-Man:
Fever (which deliberately apes the artistic
style of Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man and Dr. Strange), trip-tastic comics
creator Brendan McCarthy let slip about a possible cinematic incarnation of
Marvel's supernatural sorcerer.
He told Mark Kardwell: "It's only a matter of time before the
fantastic visual world of Ditko's Dr. Strange is brought to a wider public. Curiously enough, I was over in
Hollywood earlier this year mooching about, and I had a meeting at Disney and
the conversation drifted around to Pixar animating a Dr. Strange movie... Now, wouldn't that be nice."
No stranger to Hollywood, McCarthy has worked as an artist
on many big films, including 5-years in Australia with George Miller as
co-writer and designer of the scrapped 2003-version of Mad Max: Fury Road (IMDB oddly has no writer listed yet for the current
iteration).
Since Marvel was acquired by Disney last year there has been
a great deal of talk about corporate synergy between their properties, and
Pixar developing (or even simply supervising) a Dr. Strange feature is an ideal notion. Guillermo del Toro has
stated that he considers Strange one of the few remaining untapped "Holy Grail" comic properties in Hollywood.
Other directors who have the right balance of occult
story-sensibilities/animation & visual effects backgrounds/psychedelic
imagination for the job include Alex Proyas, Tim Burton, Robert Zemeckis, and
my personal choice Terry Gilliam.
Is Pixar and Dr. Strange a good combo? Who do YOU think
should direct the big screen treatment? Speak your mind, or we'll use our black
magic on you!
