The Doctor Strange Deleted Scenes You Didn't Know About
Marvel's Doctor Strange had a healthy runtime, clocking in around two hours, but as with many action epics of its ilk, there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. Now that Benedict Cumberbatch's first adventure as the Sorcerer Supreme has arrived on home video, let's take a look at some of the movie's most interesting deleted scenes.
Lost in Kathmandu
In this scene, Strange is still wandering around Kathmandu penniless, dirty, and hoping for a miracle, but when he sees a pooch in need, he stops to lend a hand. He fashions a splint for a stray whose arm has been sprained or broken and jokes, "Oh, yeah. Shaking my hand now, wait 'til you get the bill. How's your insurance?" In the background, we see Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) for a split second, observing this small act of kindness, and while it makes sense why this scene might be dropped to get us nearer to the action with the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), it does kinda help clear up why Mordo might have a soft spot for this guy as a potential candidate for mystical arts training, no?
Daniel Drumm
Before Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelson) lays waste to Daniel Drumm (as portrayed by Mark Anthony Brighton), the protector of the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York, he and Strange have a small chat in which Drumm admits he's afraid they're outmatched by the coming Kaecilius and his minions. But what's going on with his moment of silence here? Was he soul-merging with his twin brother Jericho Drumm? It may have raised more questions than answers with the Strange faithful who knew the character from the comics, so this might be part of the reason it was trimmed from the film. But we can probably bet Jericho, a.k.a. Brother Voodoo, will come into play later in the Strange series because, if the films are faithful to the comics, he's destined to take his brother's old post after Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme.
Derrickson indicated as much in a chat with Entertainment Weekly when he said, "I think there's a good chance you'll be seeing him down the line. He's one of my favorite characters in the Doctor Strange comics ... When you go to make a movie like this you have this huge buffet of characters. Who do we save for later movies and who do we try to bring in now? That was one we always discussed. I don't see a Doctor Strange franchise without him."
Making Contact
Turns out not all of Kaecilius' followers were 100 percent on board with his Dormammu-summoning plans from the start. His taller, blonder zealot questions whether Dormammu will actually appreciate them giving him an in to Earth's atmosphere, and when they perform the chant ritual which results in their foreheads being marked, that same doubter receives no such facial insignia. "I was wrong. Your death won't be natural after all," Kaecilius warns before producing a sharp spear to cut him down with. Ouch.
Derrickson told Entertainment Weekly that the scene wasn't cut because it wasn't interesting; rather, he wanted to keep the movie on message for Strange's leg of the journey. "The audience didn't want to be jumping around, they wanted to stay with Strange, who's on this very interesting, very personal, and very dramatic journey. The intrusion of those scenes was breaking up the soul of the movie in a way that just wasn't necessary," he explained.
Kaecilius Kills Priest
The title of this cut clip is spoilery enough, but what's interesting about this moment is how Kaecilius uses a Biblical verse to cast doubt on the Christian belief in the afterlife. Referencing the book of Luke's "promises of eternity," he says, "after life is a contradiction, there is no afterlife, and I can prove it to you," before whipping out one of his magic weapons. While it's not clear why Kaecilius and his zealots are bullying a priest here, it does show a bit of their motive. They don't believe in the doctrinal afterlife, so becoming immortal in Dormammu's realm is pretty much the only way they can enjoy eternity.
Strange's sister
Another scene we didn't get to see from Doctor Strange that may have helped to establish some background as to why Stephen Strange was so cruel to Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) is one described by director Derrickson in a chat with Collider. "In the comics, if you know the comics well, Strange has a backstory where his sister died when he was young, and that she drowned," he explained. "That had a real significant effect, and was probably instrumental in him becoming a doctor. And we shot that scene, and I loved that scene. It was a really great scene. It just didn't fit in the movie. It felt like it just didn't work. But the self-contained scene by itself, I thought it was great." He added that Strange's sister was portrayed by Lulu Wilson of Ouija and Deliver Us from Evil fame.
Amy Landecker's Anna Sthesia
Transparent star Amy Landecker filmed a scene as an anesthesiologist in Dr. Strange's operating room, but had no lines and was covered head to toe in scrub gear. Landecker told the A.V. Club that her scene was ultimately nixed from the movie, even though she still received a credit somehow. What's most interesting about it, though, is that when she did her audition, she had a much meatier role lined up. "I knew it was a doctor in a surgical kind of scene, and I knew it was with Benedict, and she flirts with him a little and it was kind of fun." Landecker kept a sense of humor about it, and teased that maybe she'll make a viral sequel for the character where she's a superhero called Anna Sthesia whose catchphrase is, "Count to ten backwards." You know you'd watch it.
The Kamar-Taj Courtyard
Viewers are given a fairly solid introduction to Kamar-Taj during Strange's time there, seeing everything from the halls and passageways to that super-cool library. So it isn't hard to understand why Derrickson edited out this short scene, in which a disheveled Strange takes in the sights of the courtyard during his arrival.
Dan Harmon's jokes
Community creator Dan Harmon stepped in to do a little script doctoring for the film and, according to Scott Derrickson, many of his jokes didn't make it into the movie. He told ScreenCrush, "There are some jokes that might have stayed in there, but for the most part, the scenes were a little too out in Dan Harmon-land, even for Doctor Strange." Marvel exec Kevin Feige said they courted Harmon's involvement because of his experience with Rick and Morty.
Extended magic mystery scene
When the Ancient One introduces Strange to the wonders of the universe by sending him on a trippy cosmic journey, it makes for one of the film's most uniquely memorable sequences—and visual effects supervisor Stef Ceretti told CinemaBlend that it was originally supposed to be much longer.
"There were tons of other things that didn't make it in the script, with relationships with his past. the Magical Mystery Tour was seven minutes long!" he explained. "You can't describe it with words. And that's been the problem all along—there was no way to write it in the script. It was a visual script that we did. I put together a reel, and then we put it together with concept art, the pre-vis guys put it together with concepts I'd taken, and made a story out of it. The editor came into the process early — before we started to shoot. That doesn't happen so much. We started to edit the Magical Mystery Tour before the other sequences of the film. So we had the editor editing the film before we shot it!"