One of the funnest things to do with geek property movies is to talk about rumors and speculation. Honestly, what makes comic book and horror franchises so unique is the community that develops with people who love the films spending more time talking about them than actually watching them.
In the old days, it happened at work, at school or at comic book stores. People with a like-minded love for comic books or movies would talk to their heart’s content and speculate on what was going to happen next. Publishers and movie people would drop hints and that would cause the excitement to build as fans wondered what would happen next.
With the Internet, that is easier than ever before. It is even bigger now because so many film sites and critics have insiders that feed them information. Most legitimate members of the film press have their press contacts and know a handful of people working in the business, so scoops are easier to come by. When I have a question, the first people I go to are my media contacts within the studios.
However, it is still the most fun to try to uncover hints and clues left by people working on the projects. Marvel is one of the best companies when it comes to that as they seem to love their fans and know that speculating about their upcoming films is where a lot of the fun lies.
Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson is one of the most exciting names that Marvel has hired. His past filmography has the idea of what he might do with Doctor Strange mind-boggling. He was a great hire and will surely do a great job. However, something caused him to reach a breaking point and he lashed out on Twitter with a tweet that – on the surface of it – shows contempt for the people who are helping to raise excitement for his movie.
Derrickson tweeted out this photo at 10 a.m. yesterday.
— Scott Derrickson (@scottderrickson) November 3, 2014
There were no words with it and no explanation. So, as most comic book movie fans will do, they explored what the meaning of this photo could be. Well, the artwork is from the Doctor Strange graphic novel Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa.
With the rumors indicating that this will not be an origin story (Kevin Feige said that Marvel movies are finished with straight origin stories for now), this could be a perfect story idea for the film. In Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa, Stephen Strange goes to the home of the Ancient Ones and finds that his master had left him something that can help humanity but comes at a dear price. It would allow the film to delve into Strange’s origin without playing as a basic origin story.
Well, with the artwork coming from that book, it is clear that people will assume that Derrickson is throwing out some kind of hint to the fans. However, at 11:09 p.m. that night, Scott Derrickson tweeted this:
I’ve learned so much this year – like how many faux-journalist fucktards will write anything for a click. — Scott Derrickson (@scottderrickson) November 4, 2014
Kevin Smith is a filmmaker that I have always loved, despite his obvious deficiencies as a director. However, his comments about film critics make him sound like someone who thinks that he is special because he is a movie writer and director, but all other writers are low life hacks who are not worthy of him. It is arrogance at its fullest. A lot of film critics I know have college degrees in writing or film studies and have written on film for many years. They are experts in film history and criticism.
Of course, there are also some writers out there who are extremely arrogant, especially when presenting their scoops they received from insiders. Those people go a long ways to make sincere writers and critics look bad. But, people like Kevin Smith seem to have lumped everyone into a pile when crapping on them, and I would hope that Derrickson does not feel the same way about all film writers.
At the end of the day, Scott Derrickson will probably make a fantastic Doctor Strange movie. Maybe the timing of his tweet was bad and he is talking about something else completely (like, maybe Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t really signing on to play Doctor Strange?). Scott Weinberg, a film critic I hold a lot of respect for, called Scott Derrickson one of the nicest guys he has ever met. That tells me this Tweet was probably taken out of context.
Either way, Scott Derrickson is working for Marvel, so he might want to play nice with the people who enjoy talking about Marvel movie rumors and be a little more careful when slinging around insults on social networking, especially with such a wide audience. There is no reason to appear to slam the people who are excited to see your next movie.