doctor strange

There are reports saying that Joaquin Phoenix of The Gladiator, and going crazy on David Letterman fame "has had discussions" with Marvel and director, Scott Derrickson about playing Doctor Strange in The Marvel MCU. Hopefully we'll find out more at Comic-Con during Marvel's panel tomorrow.

Marvel provided the following statement to Mashable in response to the heated speculation over potential whitewashing of Tilda Swinton's 'The Ancient One' character in Doctor Strange:

"Marvel has a very strong record of diversity in its casting of films and regularly departs from stereotypes and source material to bring its MCU to life. The Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film the embodiment is Celtic. We are very proud to have the enormously talented Tilda Swinton portray this unique and complex character alongside our richly diverse cast."

Doctor Strange screenwriter C. Robert Cargill provided the following reasoning for his changing of the character for the film:

"He originates from Tibet, so if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he's Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people who think that that’s bullshit and risk the Chinese government going, 'Hey, you know one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world? We’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political,'" said Cargill. "If we decide to go the other way and cater to China in particular and have him be in Tibet… if you think it’s a good idea to cast a Chinese actress as a Tibetan character, you are out of your damn fool mind and have no idea what the f*ck you’re talking about."

What do you make of all this?

And of course the trailer, in case you need a refresh on that Doctor Strange hype:

...With a pretty strong exception. The Song of Ice and Fire author has always been a Marvel nerd, and recently told MTV Geek that he would love to write Doctor Strange comics -- but it can't be rebooted or retconned.

I would have to have my lawyers to meet with Marvel's lawyers and work out an absolutely iron-clad contract that would say whatever I did in the story would continue to be canon forever, and would never be retconned, rebooted or reimagined out of the universe when some later writer decided to mess around with it. Because I hate that, I hate — I've always hated reboots and retcons and the fact that a writer comes in and undoes what a previous writer did and, y'know, brings dead characters back to life, kills new characters that weren't intended to die. That's the one thing I don't like about comics. That drives me crazy.

So what do you think? Is it worth it?

This new poster to tie us over in the meanwhile...

The real posters will never be that good.

In an interview with the folks running Daredevil on Netflix, /Film uncovered this neat tidbit of information:

Daredevil fans might appreciate one trivia tidbit about why Rosario Dawson’s character on the show is Claire Temple, rather than Linda Carter, aka Night Nurse. The simple reason is that we might see Night Nurse in a Marvel movie! “The feature side had plans for her down the road so that was the only time we ran into a conflict,” DeKnight said. “So we just used another name.”