Marvel's 'Doctor Strange' Adds a Writer and an Oscar-Winner to Its List of Potential Leads

While Disney and Marvel have announced a director for their proposed "Doctor Strange" movie, little else about the project has been revealed, especially in terms of potential star or release date. But more details seem to be firming up, with a report that Marvel is close to hiring a new screenwriter (one that genre fans are, for better or worse, very familiar with) and a new actor being added to the list of potential Doctors.



Firstly, Deadline is reporting that Jon Spaihts, who made his initial splash on a sci-fi screenplay called "Passengers" that appeared on the 2007 edition of the Black List (a list that circulates around Hollywood of that year's best unproduced screenplays) and later contributed the first draft of what would ultimately become Ridley Scott's pseudo-prequel "Prometheus," is set to write "Doctor Strange." (If you want to hear about what his version was like, there's a great commentary track that features Spaihts and the eventual screenwriter Damon Lindelof; and Spaihts version sounded terrific.) While he's worked on some high profile projects since then, nothing has come to fruition ("Passengers" is still in development hell, although with Keanu Reeves attached to lead).



Well, if everything goes through, then at least he'll know that this movie will make it to the big screen (come hell or high water). It seems that Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer wrote an initial draft but that it will most likely be discarded in favor of the Spaihts draft.



Deadline also reports that Jared Leto has been added to the list of potential leads (Doctor Strange is the "Sorcerer Supreme" of the Marvel universe, although it's unclear what track this will take), joining Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch in the mix. From Oscar winner to world class magician? Could be.



AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau







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