Doctor Strange Director Reveals Why He Would Return to Superhero Movies (Exclusive)

Scott Derrickson’s departure from the Marvel Cinematic Universe was more abrupt and unexpected than, say, Edgar Wright’s, but it hasn’t put him completely off the idea of doing another superhero project down the line. In an interview in support of V/H/S/85, Derrickson told ComicBook.com that he originally took on Doctor Strange because he thought he could do something interesting with it, and that would still be his bar for any potential return to the superhero space.

In the interview, Derrickson points out that not only is it what would draw him back to superheroes, but it’s probably what would also drive audiences back. After all, following a fairly disastrous box office summer, we can look back and see that the IP-driven movies that did best — Super Mario Bros., Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, and Barbie — all came from a very distinctive place and took big swings.

“I didn’t make Doctor Strange because it was a Marvel movie or because it was a comic book movie. I made it because it was specifically the Doctor Strange comics, which I loved, and had really strong, powerful feelings about, and felt like I was the right filmmaker to adapt that,” Derrickson told ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian. “So I would for sure go back to comic book cinema if I was working with something that I felt was a good evolution of the genre. I do think that we’re at a point in time where audiences, and myself included, don’t want to see anything that’s too close to what’s been done. I’m much more interested in the daring spinoffs than the daring genre experimentation with comic book cinema. I think that’s the way you get audiences to reengage with it is by evolving it significantly. That would be my big requirement to go back into that kind of IP-driven comic book world.”

He said he’s confident audiences are ready for that next evolution, but that in order to make a big leap, you have to pick the right character and the right story. Regardless, it’s probably something that needs to happen, given recent trends in the superhero and broader blockbuster movie space.

“you can make something that’s original and people haven’t seen before from IP, but it has to be the right IP, and you have to be willing to treat it with originality,” Derrickson said. “But I do think that audiences want original programming in their event movies now. That is a major shift that has happened, and it’s significant, and I just hope that studios don’t continue to flog the sequel franchise filmmaking in a way that costs us more time before they realize, hey, the audiences are really ready for new material.”

The V/H/S movies are a kind of microcosm of big, IP-driven moviemaking, in the sense that they’re a franchise and driven by multiple filmmakers. Still, not only are they creatively pretty freeing, but Derrickson is one of the biggest names attached to them, allowing him a chance to really dig in.

V/H/S/85, hits Shudder on October 6th

This new sequel is described, “An ominous mixtape blends never before seen snuff footage with nightmarish newscasts and disturbing home video to create a surreal, analog mashup of the forgotten ’80s.”

Filmmakers who have contributed to this latest installment include Scott Derrickson (Sinister, Doctor Strange, The Black Phone), David Bruckner (The Ritual, Hellraiser – 2022), Gigi Saul Guerrero (Bingo Hell, The Purge TV series), Natasha Kermani (Lucky), and Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn – 2021).