While all eyes are on Marvel Studios’ next outing, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the most recent Marvel Studios film is now available on home video. Doctor Strange introduced a new hero to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in exciting fashion, with Benedict Cumberbatch assuming the title role and bringing mysticism into the MCU for the first time. As conceived by director Scott Derrickson, the film offered up some truly trippy visuals and one of Marvel’s most accomplished ensembles yet, resulting in a fun if somewhat familiar superhero ride.

But as with all Marvel movies, the Blu-ray for Doctor Strange is stacked. Not only does it feature behind-the-scenes featurettes that cover everything from the film’s mind-bending effects to composer Michael Giacchino’s psychedelic score, but there's also a pretty great peek at the rest of Marvel's Phase Three, including Avengers: Infinity. But the highlight of the disc is the feature-length commentary track from Derrickson.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Director’s commentaries can be a mixed bag. Some simply explain what’s happening onscreen, while others go on so many tangents that it has little to do with the movie at hand. Here, Derrickson offers an insightful, entertaining, and focused commentary that peels back the layers on the film and offers a fascinating look at how it all came together. Derrickson is also refreshingly candid, giving a detailed and lengthy explanation for the casting of Tilda Swinton in the role of The Ancient One and discussing alternate ideas they had come up with for the movie.

While the track is absolutely worth a listen, I’ve gone through and culled together a highlight reel of sorts for those interested. Below are 25 things I learned about Doctor Strange from Scott Derrickson’s audio commentary.

  • Derrickson notes at the beginning of the commentary track that he’s recording it before the movie’s premiere, without knowing the critical or audience reaction.
  • The opening set piece of the film was meant to introduce the visual language of the weirdness and magic of the movie.
  • Derrickson went through eight meetings with Marvel before he got the job. He spent a lot of his own money to put together a 90-minute presentation, which included a script version of the astral fight scene.
  • The early dramatic scenes between Cumberbatch and McAdams were meant to ground the movie in reality so that the mysticism later on in the film is easier to buy.
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    Image via Marvel
    Derrickson chose Nepal as the location because he wanted another Eastern city that wasn’t familiar and wasn’t East Asian.
  • The earthquake in Nepal happened after they had scouted and settled on the location but before pre-production began. It destroyed a lot of the locations they had wanted to shoot on, but Derrickson and Cumberbatch decided the earthquake was all the more reason to shot there because tourism is so integral to their economy and the movie would give them a boost.
  • Derrickson talks at length about the allegations of whitewashing. He says the term doesn’t apply because the Ancient One isn’t always Asian in the comics, and also because it’s a term that declares a racist intention.
  • In casting the Ancient One, Derrickson felt it was a no-win situation. He needed the character for the film and decided it should be female, but casting a 26-year-old “leather-clad fanboy dream girl” was the wrong direction, and casting an Asian actresses always felt like a Dragon Lady stereotype. So he went with Swinton.
  • Derrickson initially wanted to leave Wong out of the film due to the stereotypical nature of the character. When he went with a white actress for the Ancient One, he chose to reconceive Wong as the opposite of a manservant—a librarian who was always more knowledgeable than Strange.
  • The Magical Mystery Tour sequence was initially longer but audiences were exhausted by the trippy effects, so Derrickson cut it down.
  • One of the places in the Magical Mystery Tour is the Quantum Realm in a nod to Ant-Man.
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    Image via Marvel
    Cumberbatch was Derrickson’s first choice. He flew to London and talked him through the movie, because at the time they didn’t have a script, but he was doing Hamlet in the summer. Eventually, Marvel pushed the release date from summer to November 2016 to accommodate Cumberbatch’s schedule.
  • When Derrickson pitched the movie to Mads Mikkelsen, the actor was most excited about the stunts because he’s always wanted to do a kung fu movie.
  • The training portion of the film ended up being longer than initially conceived because test audiences loved it and wanted more. When they went back for reshoots, they added more of the training sequence.
  • Derrickson’s guiding force in the set pieces was that every major visual effects sequence should feel like the weirdest scene in every other movie.
  • Derrickson says on set he spoke to Chiwetel Ejiofor the most because “he knows everything,” adding that he’s incredibly knowledgeable about history and socio-political events.
  • They considered using Nightmare as the film’s villain but he would’ve taken too much time to develop as a character, so instead they settled on Kaecilius as a conduit for Dormammu.
  • Stan Lee’s cameo was shot during the production of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 by James Gunn, when he filmed cameos for four Marvel movies in one day. At the time of the commentary recording, Derrickson had still yet to meet Lee.
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    Image via Marvel
    Derrickson met James Cameron on the set of Avatar when Cameron invited filmmakers to come and see the new technology. Cameron told Derrickson one of the lessons he learned on The Abyss was that the best scene in the movie was in an air tank between two characters, not a VFX sequence.
  • The gag when the cloak wipes Doctor Strange’s tears was Cumberbatch’s idea.
  • In the outline phase, Derrickson decided he wanted the ending to be a play on the trope of a portal opening up and destroying the city by showing it in reverse.
  • Screenwriter Jon Spaihts came up with the idea of the time loop.
  • The Dormammu scene was one of the only scenes in the first draft, written by Spaihts, that remains largely the same in the finished film.
  • Composer Michael Giacchino also composed the theme for the opening Marvel logo, which will be attached to all future Doctor Strange
  • The end-credits tag involving Thor was shot by Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi.

Doctor Strange is now available to purchase on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.

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