Neil Gaiman Says Marvel Turned Down Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Doctor Strange’ Pitch

There’s a signal to noise ratio disconnect with Guillermo del Toro. The filmmaker is completely beloved, especially by online sites and online audiences — he’s recently said he has to be careful what he says because fanboy sites will spin it into a story (he had to reiterate again that his Jabba The Hut “Star Wars” idea is not happening, though he did apparently sort of pitch it). But there’s that disconnect. See “Crimson Peak,” a movie discussed ad nauseum in the film blogosphere, but when it came time for theatrical release, the movie essentially flopped — it stalled out at $31 million domestically, which is a pretty pitiful number and only just reached $73 million worldwide.

And maybe Marvel’s aware of that disconnect? Writer Neil Gaiman recently revealed on Twitter that del Toro pitched Marvel his version of “Doctor Strange” in 2007, but the studio wasn’t interested. Evidently, the idea would have been Gaiman writing and del Toro directing.

READ MORE: The Films Of...