Marvel Movies: Feige On "Doctor Strange" & Bad Guys

Marvel film chief Kevin Feige is still on the stump for "Guardians of the Galaxy" abd was asked by IGN UK about the upcoming "Doctor Strange:" film and whether it could be a franchise that exists entirely on its own as opposed to being just a member of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe  .

Feige says:

"It does make sense [to have standalone franchises], but I don't think it makes sense for this character, who has clearly woven in and out of that stuff [The Avengers] in the comics. We have a template. There's a template for everything we do, which are the comics. Strange goes back and forth. Guardians less so, actually, until recently. But if there's a character like that who clearly interweaves over the course of many stories, I find no reason to go, 'We're not going to do that in the movies. We're going to keep him in his own movies.' So there's always the potential for it [Strange to join The Avengers]"

As for when they'll announce the role's casting, Feige says he doesn't think it'll be as soon as Comic-Con this weekend, BUT "it'll be relatively quickly."

The site alsoasked Feige about the potential for the return of bad guys Red Skull from Captain America: The First Avenger and Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) from "Iron Man 3"

While actor Hugo Weaving has said that he has no interest in playing the Red Skull again the character's seeming demise at the end of Cap One was handled in a way it appeared as if he was thrown somewhere across the galaxy. Feige says that was deliberate to keep the option open, but there are no immediate plans as yet for his return:

"Well, the way we showed his 'demise' in The First Avenger was to showcase to people that he could perhaps pop up again sometime... I honestly don't know when or where that would be."

As for The Mandarin Feige says they're quite open to the 'real' version of the character showing up:

"There have been [talks]. That's one of the reasons we wanted to do the fun short that Drew Pearce wrote and directed. That was to clarify, 'Hey, just because we did this thing doesn't mean this other thing doesn't exist.' And as we were making Iron Man 3 -- and I think Drew's spoken about this -- that was always our intention, was that Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) was perverting the notion of these things he's heard."

Feige goes on to say "Iron Man 3" suggests this in one key scene:

"There's a little bit of that when he's doing his detective work in his lab after Happy's been injured outside the Chinese Theater. He's talking about, 'Okay, the Mandarin is taken from various iconographies and mythologies from across the world.' The idea was always there was somebody like this. There had been rumors of somebody like this, and Aldrich Killian just built on that, to make his version."