Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently explained why the Doctor Strange movie -- to be directed by Sinister's Scott Derrickson and scripted by Prometheus' Jon Spaihts -- is key to the studio's next big phase in cinematic storytelling.

Loading

Loading

In a chat with Total Film , Feige said, " Doctor Strange is a character that I've been interested in for many, many years and that I've talked about in interviews for probably 14 years, because I believe it's very, very important for us to explore every nook and cranny of the comic-book universe and we've done the street-level heroes, and we've done the billionaire superheroes [on Earth]. We've now done the cosmic side with Thor and Avengers and most obviously with Guardians, but there's a whole other side of the Marvel comics, which is that supernatural side - the interdimensional side of the Marvel universe, and Doctor Strange is, I believe, our entry point into that other realm, which has dozens of characters and storylines all of its own."Feige continued, "Strange is very, very important, not just because it's an amazing character study, and a journey of a man who's gone from this very arrogant surgeon to somebody who is quite zen and literally keeps all of reality together on a daily basis, but it also is going to open up a whole other side of storytelling for our movies. So we're about to hire a writer to redo a draft , and we think we'll be casting probably in the next month or two, and announcing an actor, and then we get into production in the spring of next year."Although Doctor Strange's release date has yet to be officially announced, it is most likely the previously announced Marvel movie release date of July 8, 2016. Captain America 3 is slated to open against Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on May 6, 2016.