Rachel McAdams has emerged as Marvel Studios’ first choice to play the female lead opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in superhero epic Doctor Strange, according to Variety.

The Mean Girls actor is being courted by the Disney-owned studio for an unspecified role, though it’s not clear if she has yet received an offer. McAdams, 36, would join a stellar cast which also features Tilda Swinton as mentor the Ancient One, and 12 Years a Slave’s Chiwetel Ejiofor as sorcerous nobleman Baron Mordo. The actor confirmed she was in talks but told the LA Times: “It’s still super-early days, and I don’t know where that’s gonna go, if it’s gonna go anywhere at all.”

Cumberbatch was officially cast as Doctor Strange, the former neurosurgeon who protects Earth against magical threats, in December. The Marvel universe’s sorcerer supreme is a figure expected to have a central role in the studio’s ambitious next wave of superhero movies. Nine new comic-book films are expected between April 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and 2019’s The Avengers: Infinity War – Part II.

Scott Derrickson, best known for the 2008 remake of sci-fi cult classic The Day the Earth Stood Still and 2005 horror The Exorcism of Emily Rose, will direct the new film from a screenplay by Prometheus’s Jon Spaihts. Better-known female roles in the Doctor Strange comic includes the sorceress Clea and the occult author Morgana Blessing, both of whom have adopted “love interest” roles at times. The superhero first appeared in July 1963 in issue 110 of comic book Strange Tales.

Doctor Strange is due in cinemas on 4 November 2016.