DOCTOR STRANGE Is Confirmed For Marvel Phase Three

How impatient are we? The first film in Marvel's Phase Two - the films leading up to Avengers 2 in 2015 - hasn't even been released yet and we're already talking about Phase Three, which won't get underway until 2016. 

Such is the nature of the nerd, though, so let's not fight it. Let's embrace the fact that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has dropped official word on two Phase Three films: Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. 

We knew Ant-Man was coming, as the title treatment debuted at Comic Con this year. And we suspected that Doctor Strange was coming, as he has long been one of Feige's favorites (I talked to Feige about a Doctor Strange film back during the release of Iron Man). Talking to MTV, Feige made it all but official:

 "He's a great, original character, and he checks the box off this criteria that I have: he's totally different from anything else we have, just like Guardians of the Galaxy. He's totally different from anything we've done before, as is Ant-Man, which keeps us excited."

What Doctor Strange does, like Guardians of the Galaxy, is offer Marvel non-superhero avenues. Feige, I wager, is paying close attention to how the superhero genre is faring, and he wants Marvel Studios to have a life past the expiration date of caped heroes. The Marvel library contains characters who are much more fantasy or scifi-oriented, and the studio is smart to develop those.

Now the question is what kind of Doctor Strange movie will Marvel make? Look for it to be lower budget, and hopefully for it to be a real headtrip. Doctor Strange has always been a psychedelic character, and I hope the film tackles psychedelia head on.