6. Shortlist For Doctor Strange Directors Released
Though the studio has yet to confirm the news, it's no secret that one of the upcoming Marvel Studios films is the long-talked about Doctor Strange. Marvel President of Production Kevin Feige has been talking about the film's possibility for years, and chances are it'll be one of the new characters introduced in Phase 3 (which begins with Ant-Man in 2015).
THR reported earlier this week that the studio is meeting with several directors, and revealed that four names were in contention: Brave co-writer and co-director Mark Andrews, A Royal Affair director Nikolaj Arcel, Welcome To Yesterday's Dean Israelite, and Jonathan Levine, who directed 50/50. This is an interesting choice of directors, to say the least; each one is famous for smaller films, not action-heavy comic book fare. It isn't new for Marvel to think outside the box, of course, after hiring The Russo Brothers (famous for TV episodes of Community and Arrested Development) for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and James Gunn (director of Slither and Super) for Guardians of the Galaxy. Just because these may not be the first four names on our minds doesn't mean they wouldn't be good for the film, so we'll just have to wait and see who Marvel picks. Of course, we'll have to wait until the film is officially greenlit first, which I'm expecting we'll hear at Comic-Con, if not sooner.