Kevin Feige Clarifies 'Doctor Strange' Sequel Isn't 'Necessarily' a Horror Film
Fans of both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and horror films clicked their heels in joy this summer when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness director Scott Derrickson announced at San Diego Comic-Con that the long-awaited sequel to the 2016 film, Doctor Strange, was going to be “the first scary MCU film,” that is, “dipped into the Gothic and the horror and the horrific.”
But now, according to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, it might be a little tamer than Derrickson let on.
ComicBook.com reports that the MCU boss recently made an appearance at the New York Film Academy, and revealed that the Benedict Cumberbatch-led film will going to include “scary sequences,” but isn't “necessarily” a full-fledged horror movie. He compared the film to important Steven Spielberg-directed movies from the eighties, explaining:
“I mean, there are horrifying sequences in [Raiders of the Lost Ark] that I as a little kid would [cover my eyes] when their faces melted. Or Temple of Doom, of course, or Gremlins, or Poltergeist. These are the movies that invented the PG-13 rating, by the way. They were PG and then they were like, ‘We need another [rating].’ But that’s fun. It’s fun to be scared in that way, and not a horrific, torturous way, but a way that is legitimately scary — because Scott Derrickson is quite good at that — but scary in the service of an exhilarating emotion.”
Derrickson, who has directed horror films like The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, and Deliver Us from Evil, is probably very excited at the possibility to make some Marvel fans jump. We will see how well he does it at the PG-13 level when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes out May 7, 2021.