It feels like forever since Benedict Cumberbatch did something nerdy/dorky/fan-baity. He used to be the king of nerd-baiting, but I suspect Sophie Hunter made him stop. Or Bendy just grew up a bit. But Bendy did attend Comic-Con this year for the big Marvel panel, and he and his Doctor Strange costars did a lot of press. Rachel McAdams was there, as was Tilda Swinton, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen and Chiwetel Ejiofor. That’s the core cast of Doctor Strange, and Strange is Marvel’s next big franchise, or so Marvel hopes. DS comes out in November of this year, and they dropped a new full-length trailer at Comic-Con. So many new trailers! This one tells us more about the story than the first trailer, and we get to see more of Mads’ villian, and more of Chiwetel. Here’s the trailer:
A few thoughts… I think that Tilda Swinton’s casting as The Ancient One is still going to blow up in Marvel executives’ faces. I don’t think Benedict’s face merkin looks believable at all. And there are more than a few effects that look like outtakes from Inception. The cape thing is really cool, and I am enjoying the costume overall. My biggest irritation (beyond Tilda and the whitewashing) is that Chiwetel’s supporting role seems to be a particularly outdated film trope (literally, his character is “magical”).
Benedict also chatted about his version of Doctor Strange and who Strange is in the Marvel-comic world. Some assorted quotes:
Strange is rich: “He’s recognizably of our world. He’s rich but he’s not a Stark. His past definitely informs who he is, as it obviously does with Tony Stark. And there’s a rich degree of backstory which I’m sure will just keep coming up through our films and the Avengers as well I guess. But the point is you recognize him hopefully as a trope, a type. Very alpha male, very arrogant. Brilliant at his job, but human. Alone at the top of his castle. It’s very Xandau-like, his life. He’s created a bubble of insularity. This is all about him going from a place where he thinks he knows it all to realizing he knows nothing.”
Strange’s arc, the Avengers: “There’s nothing normal about his character arc in this. By the end of the film, he’s a superhero. He’s kind of an in-brackets ‘defender.’ He hold stuff together in a way that’s not always immediately obvious and doesn’t always involve fighting a lot bad guys and stray bullets. There is that but he kind of tidies up the universe and makes sure nothing breaks through the boundaries… He is more important than all the Avengers put together. I’m going to get in a lot of trouble.”
Benedict was joking when he said Strange is more important than all of the other Avengers. There were rumors that at least one of the Avengers would make a cameo in Doctor Strange too, although I don’t know if that actually happened. After all, there were rumors that Strange would make a cameo in Captain America: Civil War and nothing came of that.
Also: The new Sherlock Season 4 trailer. This looks… good? It looks interesting, I’ll say that. It doesn’t look like they’re doing wacky sh-t for fan-service, how about that?
Benedict’s hair looks really great these days. It’s a shame he hides it under that fug hat, like in these photos from LAX ahead of Comic-Con.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
Is he trying to copy Harrison Ford’s accent?
I hope people don’t forget about the whitewashing. I still think it’s disgraceful that there was an actual Asian role and they gave it to a white person. Because films these days just aren’t white enough, you know?
+1
+ 10
It looks good, I will see it, I like Tilda, but I know I will sit there thinking this is dumb why isn’t she asian? It will be visually and culturally annoying.
IA. I wonder what was going through Tilda’s mind when Benedict Wong pointed out (during the Dr Strange panel) that he wasn’t comfortable with a role that was essentially a ‘manservant tea maker’.
Also re Tilda… did she ever change her mind about signing that Polanski petition?
Whats the story here, i seem to have missed it.
@Mira, which story? The Benedict Wong one, or the Polanski one?
Also found it ridiculous that Benedict Wong had to *tell* Marvel that he was uncomfortable. That’s how he put it. He said he told them. So reading between the lines, that means they weren’t going to change the role at all? They were going to keep the subservient manservant? And they only changed it when someone actually stood up and said something? This problem is more entrenched than they’d like us to believe.
@KHLBHL SMH I just can’t with Marvel and their excuses.
What’s particularly galling is that Benedict Can’tbeKhan actually spent a gap year teaching English to Tibetan monks in Nepal… so what? Did the guy keep silent the entire time when Tilda’s name came up during casting or what?
It’s truly telling to see the hoops Marvel leap through to defend Tilda’s casting (b/c China said sooo~~~). Um, hello? Your main character is a SORCERER THAT DOES MAGIC FFS; that fact alone is enough to get a film banned. Chinese censors are obviously not going to be cool with that *points to a new Ghostbusters poster*, so why not just go for it and cast a Nepalese/Indian/Bhutanese actor/actress?
Plenty of movies with magic have been approved there, including HP and the Avengers with the Scarlett Witch. They’re the toughest with realistic ghosts, but sometimes they also use that reason to reject movies they just don’t like, as was reportedly the case with Ghostbusters. Shame too, they needed that box office, It sounds like the studio didn’t consult with them beforehand, making rejection more likely.
Marvel, as far as I know, does not ask for or entertain casting input from actors at all.
PaschaP: “What’s particularly galling is that Benedict Can’tbeKhan actually spent a gap year teaching English to Tibetan monks in Nepal…”
He was teaching the Tibetan monks in Darjeeling, a city in India. Not Nepal.
because $$. they need the Asian box office, so no Tibet. but casting someone else who is Asian but not Tibetan is also considered a big misstep. they should have dropped the character tbh that’s what i would have done.
the overseas box office holds more value than before because the studio agreements make the take there closer to the domestic take, so you can expect US movies to tailor to audiences besides the US more and more now
They changed the setting of the film to Nepal. They could’ve cast a Nepalese actor (or a Bhutanese actor of Nepalese descent, or an Indian actor of Nepalese descent, or….you get the point). That is a fake excuse. No Nepalese actors, you say? Dichen Lachman. Daya Vaidya. Not a lot, but they are out there.
And it’s China. China doesn’t actually have anything against Tibet, they just don’t want anything resembling Tibetan independence to be portrayed. Marvel could’ve easily found a way around that. Just put a giant Chinese flag in the temple. (Whether that’s ethical or not is another question, but you say it’s all about $$$, so…) So again, straw man.
They could’ve even just set it in China and cast a Chinese actor. I don’t see what would’ve been wrong with that. That would not have really distorted the origin story of Doctor Strange. Oh, but wait. Marvel didn’t want to cast an Asian person at all, in the first place.
The final argument was that the Ancient One, if portrayed by an Asian man or woman, would have been a reductive stereotype and they would have faced backlash for that. So people say it would have been a lose-lose for Marvel. Not true at all, as long as the Ancient One was fleshed out, complex, and written as well as they wrote for Tilda Swinton. We (meaning all POC and women) just want to be represented in our full complexity on screen. We don’t always have to be good guys or bad guys. We just want to see complex, fully formed, thoughtful characters. FFS.
–it’s considered a slap in the face to “replace” a tibetan character with someone of Asian descent who isn’t tibetan because of the independence issue (and the offensive idea Asians are interchangeable). Nepal may have worked though but i still say drop the character
–marvel, like many big us studios, try deal with china at the start to identify censorship issues. my guess is a super-powered tibetan character is out, and they may have also nixed having multiple Asian characters doing magic (restricted and/or banned in western movies over there, particularly if the actor is of Chinese descent).
–i’m arab, well aware of the issues in the media since all i get are terrorists or somehow connected to terrorists. all i am saying is that marvel and these studios are businesses and the bottom line is what drives all decisions, not social concerns
I like Cumby, but that thumbnail makes him look like a thumb wearing a wig.
Yes, something is off in the picture. He looks like an otter or a sea lion. A bit disturbing !
I actually liked the new trailer. We might go and see it, despite our Marvel fatigue.
I hope there is more to the plot than “good apprentice needs to learn quickly to protect the world from the previous apprentice who turned evil”. Kung-fu panda did that pretty well. And a few dozen movies before that.
The inceptioness of the special effects really bothered me too.
I won’t be seeing it based on this trailer. If the reviews are good, maybe.
Oh god that would be hilarious if this is just Kung-Fu Panda Inception
Trailer reminds me of the plot of Kung Fo Panda. I liked Kung Fo Panda
Chiwetel looks hot with a beard! Thats all i got.
Chiwetel looks hot without a beard. He is so adorable and even thought he broke my heart when he has another girlfriend but I still love him and his girlfriend is very pretty. Kudos to him
Ejiofor is the Bond we all deserve. <3
Ejiofor is just hot without trying.
Chiwetel with facial hair > Chiwetel shaved
Can someone please help him find hats and glasses that actually fit his head.
I think he stole the hat from Mark Rylance.
Nice of him to dress up for the occasion (!)
I know, it looks like he stopped in on the way to the gym!
Okay, I’ll say it. He looks like he’s 60. Still love him, tho.
Glad I’m not the only one seeing it. I can’t believe he’s only 40 years old.
Maybe it’s because he’s been out of our faces for a while now, but wow, I was astonished when I saw these pictures.
omg the token asian man on that trailor. lol. they made sure to include that guy to ~make up~ for the backlash. but of course, as a lackey unimportant character being there to serve the white man.
Yup. I bet Benedict Wong wont get that credit title if there was no backlash regarding the ancient one. So good for him.
Didn’t they say something like they cast her in order to avoid seeming clichéd? Although my hubs, king of all things nerd, still can’t get on board with her casting and he loved her in Constantine.
They cast her because of the Chinese market.
The original character is Tibetan. So they cast Tilda to avoid annoying the Chinese and having the film bounced from that huge market. But by casting a woman, they can say that they are still pushing boundaries. And it’s Tilda, so it’s pretty guaranteed that she will bring on the awesome.
I read that they skipped the Tibetan origins and made her Celtic.
It’s Marvel, it will make hundreds of millions. Blah blah blah.
I will say though that costume is GREAT!
The cape is majestic.
Is he trying to mimic Harrison Ford with that attempt at an American accent?
His accent slipped during the trailer so… Not holding my breath
How in the balls did I not know the great Benedict Wong was in this. Then I read upthread what his character is in the film. 😣
It looks like they stole stuff from Inception, and The Doctor Strange DVD cartoon. Can’t stand Cumberbatch, and the white washing (with Swinton) annoys, so I’ll be waiting for it to come on TV, me thinks.
This is a great cast. I am warming up to this movie.
Ok this looks like Inception. I don’t even understand what the story is supposed to be and I watched the trailer 3 times.
I will go watch it but I’m not super hyped about it. Stephen Strange seems to be a boring super hero and I’m still mad about Tilda. I am looking forward to Madds though.
I will be seeing this movie on opening night.
Why at comic con men are dressed very casually while women are all done up and wearing heels? Is it a matter of personale preference? Or is there a dress code?
I think it is personal preference
I’m just here for Mads 🙂
God, me too. The only reason to see this, as far as I’m concerned.
Ha. Did you see that Tom Hiddleston barged in on the Doctor Strange EW photoshoot? What does it meeeeaaaaan?
That he’s needy?
That he was in the photo area at the same time and the EW people said hey be a doll and pop in here for a minute?
Just an alternative point of view.
I like your explanation.
We’ll see this, because we are comic book nerds and we see every comic book movie/show that comes out. Yes, that means we saw that AWFUL Fantastic Four movie in the theater on opening weekend last year.
Even though I’ve read them, I’m not huge into the Doctor Strange comics, but my husband very much is. I thought it was Cumbercrazy when Benedict was picked for this role, and so did Mr. Abby_J, but the trailer has convinced us both that maybe we were wrong. I just really wish that since they were changing characters backgrounds, they made Strange English, so that he could use his real accent. I hate Cumby’s American accent.
I’ll be passing on this one. No doubt the cosmic visuals will be fantastic, but Nothing about the trailer really interested me. (sorry Mads, still love ya)
Cumberbatch looks terrible with facial hair. As a kid I always thought Doctor Strange was very good looking, and loved his goatee, but it sadly doesn’t work on Benedict.
Don’t care about Dr. Strange–but the Sherlock S4 trailer looks AWESOME.
I am a Nepali woman with many family members of Tibetan descent. I can tell you that we Tibetans and Nepalese people have never had a voice compared to other cultures/people in South Asia like Chinese, Indians etc, when it comes to representation. That is because Indian and Chinese culture and politics shape and dominate everything in South Asia and we have very little population compared to these two nations. I would love to see more representation and it is important but we simply would not want any Asian to play the Ancient One, just for the sake of diversity.
If you are going to portray the Ancient One properly, then he HAS to be Tibetan, not even Indian or Chinese or Japanese or any other ethnicity..even a Nepali. This is because everything is very political here. It is not so easy like casting Meryl Streep (who is American) as Margaret Thatcher just because she is Caucasian. Many Asians are of the same race and many are not but casting other ethnicities to replace the Tibetan one just for the sake of diversity is very disrespectful because of the decades of erasure and domination of Tibetans and their culture by Chinese Government and also because of complex social and political relationship we have with the other countries.
I have a lot of Pakistani friends who were mad that Priyanka Chopra, who is Indian, voiced Kamala Khan in Marvel’s new game a few months ago. Kamala happens to be of Pakistani origin and they though it was disrespectful as Pakistanis are mostly stereotyped as Middle-Eastern terrorists. I am not saying that others aren’t…its just that there are very subtle political tensions in Asia and it is very hard for people from outside to understand that.
I even talked to my Tibetan classmates (whose parents came to Nepal from China as refugees) and they were disappointed that the character wasn’t Tibetan but they were also relieved that it wasn’t played by a Chinese/Indian or any other Asian actor because it meant that all Asians are the same and we definitely aren’t. I can totally understand why Marvel did not make this character Tibetan. China in recent years has given more rights to Tibet and there is no direct suppression etc but China does not want Tibet or anything Tibetan to become popularised in the worldwide media and entertainment. Also, Disney in the past has been banned by China as a result of the company criticising China in some cartoon or something. Disney had to do a lot of lobbying to let China release Mulan. They would not want a similar situation. It is pure business and that is what you expect from a billion dollar studio. I personally liked the trailer and I have always loved movies about magic and mystic arts so I am going to watch this.