The much talked about “Dr. Strange” project is set to kick-off production in the spring of 2015. The announcement comes short on the heels of multiple rumors suggesting who we can expect to audition for the coveted role as the titular character. Jared LetoTom Hardy, and Benedict Cumberbatch are reportedly in the mix, but none of the reports have reached fruition so far.

Dr. Stephen Strange was once a gifted, but egotistical, surgeon who sought out the Ancient One to heal his hands after they were wounded in a car accident. Instead, the Ancient One trained him to become Master of the Mystic Arts and the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.”

Dr. Stephen Strange was once a gifted, but egotistical, surgeon who sought out the Ancient One to heal his hands after they were wounded in a car accident. Instead, the Ancient One trained him to become Master of the Mystic Arts and the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.

President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, spilled the beans about the upcoming “Dr.Stange” project recently while attending the CineEurope event in Barcelona. The Marvel Pres talked about Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange, saying “We’re about to hire a writer to redo a draft, and we think we’ll be casting probably in the next month or two, and announcing an actor, and then we get into production in the spring of next year.”

Feige explains:

“Doctor Strange is a character that I’ve been interested in for many, many years and that I’ve talked about in interviews for probably 14 years, because I believe it’s very, very important for us to explore every nook and cranny of the comic-book universe and we’ve done the street-level heroes, and we’ve done the billionaire superheroes [on Earth],”

“We’ve now done the cosmic side with Thor and Avengers and most obviously with Guardians, but there’s a whole other side of the Marvel comics, which is that supernatural side – the interdimensional side of the Marvel universe, and Doctor Strange is, I believe, our entry point into that other realm, which has dozens of characters and storylines all of its own.”

“So Strange is very, very important, not just because it’s an amazing character study, and a journey of a man who’s gone from this very arrogant surgeon to somebody who is quite zen and literally keeps all of reality together on a daily basis, but it also is going to open up a whole other side of storytelling for our movies.”

Johnny Depp and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were among the candidates to take on the role as Marvel’s greatest protector against magical peril, but the rumors were debunked. Scott Derrickson (“Sinister”, “Deliver Us from Evil”) will serve behind the lens, with the script by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer.

The “Dr. Strange” movie is planned for Marvel’s Phase 3 releases in 2016.

Source: Total Film (via darkhorizons.com)