Cinematographer Ben Davis calls Doctor Strange “Marvel’s Fantasia” and hints at an M.C. Escher aesthetic

Marvel’s Phase Three launches next May with Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: Civil War and then continues in November with Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange. With the latter gearing up to begin production, Screen Daily today brings us some interesting comments from Director of Photography Ben Davis that tease a Marvel feature film unlike anything we’ve seen before.

“Most of the work within it is about other dimensions,” Davis tells the outlet. “And I described it, I think, when I was talking to Marvel as ‘Marvel’s Fantasia’ in a way, because it’s so sort of out there and different to everything else that they’ve done… There’s a lot of previsualisation, and there’s a lot of work which is very hard – you look at it and you see the imagery that they’ve created for it and you think, ‘well how the hell do we shoot that!?’ because it’s all sort of [M.C.] Escher stuff.”

Of course, Marvel fans got a taste of a world beyond our own in Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man, which saw a visit to the “Quantum Realm.” Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently hinted in an interview with CinemaBlend that the realm will help pave the way for some truly unusual Doctor Strange sequences.

“If you look up the study of quantum mechanics, when you get down that small, as Hank Pym says, space time is meaningless,” he said, “and there’s a lot of that stuff that applies to ‘Doctor Strange.’ So this is sort of an appetizer for, ‘If you think this is weird…’”

Scheduled to hit theaters November 4, 2016, Doctor Strange is scripted by Jon Spaihts and directed by Scott Derrickson. It is said to follow the story of neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) who, after a horrific car accident, discovers the hidden world of magic and alternate dimensions.

Also attached to star in Doctor Strange are Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tilda Swinton with Rachel McAdams said to be in talks for an as of yet unconfirmed role.

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