Marvel Are Scrapping Origin Stories, Starting With ‘Doctor Strange’

In a recent Schmoes Know podcast, with guest star Devin Faraci from BadAssDigest, he let the fans of the Marvel community in on a little secret. Though it might be “the tiniest of scoops”, as Faraci states, it’s still a pretty big deal when it comes to the hardcore Marvelites, and he goes on to then discuss what we might expect, not just from Scott Derrickson’s DOCTOR STRANGE, but all future Marvel adaptations of new characters.

Talking about how the Marvel stuff works, so Doctor Strange, they had a script in-house, forever, forever and ever, you might have even seen it. It’s been around forever, it’s a pretty standard origin story for Doctor Strange, it’s Baron Mordo as the bad guy. That’s all gone. Marvel’s new thing is no more origin stories. So Doctor Strange’s movie no longer has an origin.

So you might be wondering, where exactly are Marvel going with this? Faraci continues addressing that very issue:

It begins in media res. It’s got Doctor Strange already established as the Sorcerer Supreme and it’s a totally new script, Jon Spaihtsis working totally new on his own without any of the previous stuff, they’re not even touching the previous scripts. […] This is not gonna be twenty minutes of him being a doctor and becoming [the Sorcerer Supreme].

Obviously if this is true, it shows that Marvel are becoming increasingly confident in creating effective standalone pictures without the necessity of introduction them via an origin story. It means we won’t see the egotistical self-entitled surgeon that is Stephen/Doctor Strange, nor will we see the C.I.A agent turned N.A.S.A security chief, turn superhero Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel (though it still might be implied that her and Nick Fury worked together). But will people buy into it? I’m gonna say yes, and hear me out. The current formula for superhero films, as a genre, is essentially origin story > sequel introducing significant villain and character development > sequel highlighting loss, typically of the heroes self. This formula, whilst moderately successful is starting to wear thin.

Now whilst origin stories are important, I imagine they’ll only be touched upon briefly in the form of easter eggs, cameos, or even just a couple of minutes in a before > much later scenario, much like with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. These films are most likely going to focus on the person these properties are NOW, instead of who they were, demonstrating the importance of significant character development within one film instead of stretching it across multiple films (much like that seen in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER and THE WINTER SOLDIER) This doesn’t mean that there won’t be character development across future sequels, just that it will feature more heavily in a film-by-film scenario. What do you guys think? How will you adapt, if at all, to Marvel not devoting a good portio of future films to their respective origin stories? Let us know in the comments section!

All of this information (and more) can be seen in the video below, which you can find at 52:03. If you’re interested as to the workings of other Marvel projects, such as THE INHUMANS, or whether or not DC have a well orchestrated plan for their future nine-film agenda, you should consider watching the rest of it.

Source: YouTube