director of the millennium

“I have to admit that respecting the original comics is indeed a more correct choice.”

The screenwriters of "Doctor Strange", C. Robert Kyle and Joe Spaihts, were whispering with their heads down.

Although this film has many screenwriters credited, including Steve Ditko, the original comic book author who co-created Marvel superheroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, and most importantly, Stan Lee, the creator of the Marvel universe.

But they are just nominal members of Marvel Studios out of respect for the original work. The actual screenwriting was done by two screenwriters, C. Robert Kellgill and Joe Spaihts.

They also wanted to change the character of Ancient One from a Chinese man in the original version to a Celtic woman.

At first, they were complacent about this decision. After all, both Stan Lee and Steve Ditko approved of this decision and thought it was harmless.

They themselves believe that changing the Ancient One into a woman will make the plot between the Ancient One and Stephen Strange more dramatic.

After all, if the main actors are all men, it is not a good practice from the perspective of a film screenwriter. Even a male drama like "Fast and Furious" must have women to embellish it. This has become a Hollywood screenwriter formula.

Except for war films, any kind of film must have a pairing of men and women in order to bring out the best in each other.

However, after Wu Yuan took over the directing of "Doctor Strange", he immediately proposed to change Ancient One back to the image of the original comics.

Joe Spaihts even had an argument with Wu Yuan over a transatlantic video conference about this.

He believes that in the original comics, Doctor Strange has many love stories, and his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend) Kristen Palmer has appeared from the very beginning, so there is no need for Ancient One to be responsible for the "female" perspective.

But movies are different. In order to consider the length of the movie, this kind of side plot must be cut, and there are not many scenes left for Kristen Palmer.

If Ancient One is also set as a man, 90% of the scenes in this movie will only feature various men, with only a few scenes with women.

This is undoubtedly inconsistent with the style of Hollywood movies, nor with Hollywood's "business routine template". Doing so will put the success of the movie at risk.

I have to admit that this idea is reasonable.

Wu Yuan was also well aware that a purely male drama was indeed a taboo in the film industry.

Even a truly "pure men's play" needs some sexy beauties to embellish it, the so-called vase heroine.

However, Wu Yuan still firmly requested that Ancient One be changed back to the original Marvel image, but he also relaxed the requirement and allowed the two screenwriters to appropriately increase the role of Christine Palmer. So in Wu Yuan's version of "Doctor Strange", there is an additional plot about introducing the love line between Stephen Strange and Christine Palmer, which is also a plot that appeared in the original comics.

This is also the reason why Rachel McAdams joined the crew for the shoot. Otherwise, according to the original version, she would only need to shoot in New York for a few days to finish the filming.

In the end, because Wu Yuan's status and influence were great enough, Marvel executives chose to follow his ideas and let two screenwriters cooperate with him, which resulted in the current version of "Doctor Strange".

Until the movie was released, the two screenwriters were actually somewhat dissatisfied that their "brilliant ideas" were rejected.

But now that "Doctor Strange" has begun to be released on a large scale around the world, there are more and more discussions about this movie on the Internet, and the box office has been rising steadily. They have to admit that Wu Yuan's persistence may be right.

Because in any country where "Doctor Strange" is released, the Ancient One will be the focal character when movie fans in those countries discuss the movie. A large number of fans are curious about this mysterious Chinese man, and are also fascinated by the high-class character he shows in the movie.

Ask yourself, if this character was an ordinary bald Celtic woman in the eyes of Europeans and Americans, would this effect be achieved?
The two screenwriters are not fools. They could guess that there would definitely not be such good character feedback as it is now.

And when it came to November 11th, when "Doctor Strange" began to be released on a large scale in China and the United States, this idea was completely accepted by the two.

On November 11 (Friday), "Doctor Strange" was released in 4 theaters in North America, and took in $3882 million on the first day!
This undoubtedly won the box office championship on Friday!
On the next day, November 11, "Doctor Strange" grossed another 5 million U.S. dollars in North America. Although it was a slight drop from the first day, the box office performance was still strong!
Generally speaking, when most Hollywood movies are released in North America, it is normal for the box office performance on the second day to drop by 5%-8% compared to the first day. This is even considered a relatively good performance.

It is normal for a mediocre movie to drop its daily box office by 50% on the second day of its release!
When the original "Doctor Strange" was released, not only was the box office on the first day only 3256 million US dollars, but the box office on the second day dropped by 4.2%, and on the third day it only took in 2125 million US dollars. The total North American box office in three days was 8500 million US dollars!
This transcript looks pretty good.

But Wu Yuan's version of "Doctor Strange" performed even better when it was released in North America!

The box office revenue on the first day was 3843 million U.S. dollars, the second day was 3768 million U.S. dollars, and the third day was 3122 million U.S. dollars. The box office revenue in the first three days of the weekend successfully exceeded 1 million U.S. dollars!
To achieve such great results, the character of Ancient One in the movie deserves a lot of credit!

Many fans who went to the cinema on the first day shared their viewing experience online after watching the movie, and focused on the mysterious Chinese wizard "Ancient One". They believed that this character was different from all the Asian images that appeared in all previous Hollywood movies and was full of "Chinese classics" flavor.

It is because of this attraction that on the second and third days after the release of "Doctor Strange", more North American audiences chose to go to the cinema to see this wizard from mysterious China, and ultimately achieved a box office record of over 100 million in the first weekend!
Although it cannot be compared with big superhero movies like "The Avengers", "Doctor Strange" is good enough to rank among the top Marvel single superhero movies!
Judging from the current box office trends, there is a high probability that the final North American box office of "Doctor Strange" will exceed 3 million US dollars, which is about million US dollars higher than the original version!
In mainland China, "Doctor Strange", which was released simultaneously with North America, also achieved good box office results!
The film was released in China on November 11, with a box office of 4 million RMB on the first day and 1.2 million RMB in the first three days, which is also a box office result far exceeding the original version.

This is mainly due to the personal charm of director Wu Yuan and the charm of the characters who showcase the image of the Chinese people in the film.

After all, Marvel movies now have a very high influence in China. Everyone hopes to see Chinese superhero faces in Marvel movies. The Ancient One is certainly one of them, and he is a very high-end superhero!
In its first weekend, Doctor Strange was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic, achieving a first weekend box office result that made Marvel extremely satisfied! (End of this chapter)