Marvel's Doctor Strange: 8 Reasons You Should Be Excited

4. The Element Of Horror

Scott Derrickson
Evan Agostini/AP

Doctor Strange is directed by Scott Derrickson, of Sinister, Deliver Us From Evil and The Exorcism Of Emily Rose fame. He might not seem like the obvious choice to direct a big-budget superhero action-film, but his addition means that Doctor Strange may be infused with a pinch of flavour that sets it apart from every other mainstream comic-book movie that gets released; horror.

The whole movie obviously won't be this way - it's still a Marvel production for the entire family to enjoy, so the intensity needs to be scaled back from Derrickson's other efforts.

But if Doctor Strange is seriously darker than anything else Marvel has put out so far, it could offer audiences a completely fresh vibe - we've never really seen big-budget spectacle and horror merged before - while simultaneously silencing that vocal part of the online community who've deemed their movies 'too light'.

The MCU has given us a political thriller, a heist movie, a space opera and a period piece, but it hasn't given us a horror yet, and that could be about to change. Doctor Strange's otherworldly subject matter would mesh perfectly with a director who's comfortable in more mature territory, and it's exciting to see what Derrickson will bring to the table in this regard.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!