10 Directors Who Could Take Over Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
01/09/2020 11:34 pm EST
Rachel Talalay
Filmmaker Rachel Talalay has had a long and varied career, but bold visuals, big ideas, and genre fare all seem to come up again and again.
She directed the 1995 comic book adaptation Tank Girl, which was a critical flop at the time but has turned into a cult favorite. It embraced the comics in an over-the-top way that would feel at home in the world of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and even though it did not connect with audiences the way Spider-Verse did, it still is a weird little movie full of bold visuals and solid performances.
In recent years, Talalay has directed numerous episodes of The CW's Arrowverse shows, Doctor Who, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and an episode of Doom Patrol, maybe TV's closest analog to the kind of world that Derrickson made with the first Doctor Strange.
Jake Kasdan
Like many of Marvel's filmmakers, Kasdan is not a name that is immediately familiar as a blockbuster filmmaker. He spent much of his career making low-budget dramedies like Zero Effect and The TV Set before transitioning to straight-up comedies like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. But in the last few years, Kasdan has followed in his father Lawrence Kasdan's footsteps, and taken on some big blockbusters in the form of two Jumanji movies in a row.
Kasdan has a firm understanding of character and a sense of humor that would both be welcome at Marvel and both the imagination and experience with big visual effects films that would allow him to exist in, and expand, the world of Doctor Strange.
Sam Raimi
It's been a while since Sam Raimi helmed a superhero movie, and if you were going to give him a crack at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what better choice than Doctor Strange? Then the creator of The Evil Dead could use his horror chops and the director of Spider-Man could say that he had worked on both of Steve Ditko's biggest Marvel properties!
Nicole Kassell
Kassell might not be a household name, but some of her work is certainly catching the attention of critics and studios. In addition to directing the first two episodes of HBO's Watchmen last year, she also helmed the penultimate episode, "Man Walks Into Abar," which you could make a legitimate argument was the best TV episode of 2019.
Marvel has hired from the prestige TV pool before, and so it would not be entirely surprising to see them make a move for Kassell, especially since Watchmen doesn't currently have a second season planned, so she may have a few openings in her schedule.
Brad Bird
Yeah, it's kind of a truism that Brad Bird makes great animated movies and...less great...live-action films. But one could argue that the structure of the Marvel Cinematic Universe could provide a kind of safety net that would allow Bird to finally make a live-action movie that has a chance of being as beloved as Iron Giant or The Incredibles.
Leigh Whannell
Leigh Whannell is somebody that is kind of in the same vein as Scott Derrickson, in terms of his having a franchise horror background. He also transitioned into a stylishly-made, low-budget action movie in the form of the wildly-underrated Upgrade two years ago, which proves that he for sure at least knows how to stage a fight scene.
And, like Shazam! director David F. Sandberg, he has been playing in the same sandbox with James Wan on and off for years, so he has presumably seen some of the issues that go into making a transition from small movies to giant blockbusters, and can adjust better than most.
Robert Rodriguez
The filmmaker behind El Mariachi and Sin City might feel like an odd fit for a supernatural movie like Doctor Strange, and one might think that Rodriguez's cred as an indie film icon might make him an odd candidate for Marvel. But really, this would be just another day at the office for the guy who did Spy Kids 3D and Alita Battle Angel. The latter, released just last year, actually drew quite a bit of enthusiasm from fans and praise for its visuals even if it did not connect with mainstream audiences.
Joshua and Jonathan Baker
The brothers behind Kin, last year's sci-fi crime drama about a teenager who comes into possession of an alien weapon, could be right up Marvel's alley. They made that movie -- which flopped, but was visually very impressive and brought some great performances out of their large cast -- on only $30 million. It isn't hard to imagine what they could do on a much larger budget, and with the guidance of Kevin Feige to help them from wandering too far afield (the script on Kin was the movie's weakness).
Gina Prince-Bythewood
After years doing well-received character pieces like Love & Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees, Gina Prince-Bythewood finally got tapped for a huge superhero movie -- Silver and Black, which seems to be in development hell at Sony. Meanwhile, though, she took on the pilot episode of Cloak & Dagger and is in post-production on The Old Guard, based on the comic by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez. It seems like she might be a perfect fit to slip into the MCU.
Martin Scorsese
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