Guillermo Del Toro To Direct DR. STRANGE?

I remember at the Comic-Con ’10 panel for the Guillermo Del Toro-produced DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, the filmmaker who left THE HOBBIT told attendees that there’s going to be a project that he’ll be doing and will announce soon enough. It got everybody wondering what the hell is this super secret project? Comicbookmovie might have the answer..

If you recalled, Deadline reported last month, that Marvel has hired screenwriting team Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write DR. STRANGE. Donnelly and Oppenheimer penned the upcoming CONAN reboot and the game-based movie UNCHARTED: DRAKE’S FORTUNE which is in development and they also wrote a draft for COWBOYS & ALIENS which is currently in production.
This DR. STRANGE movie will mark the first Marvel’s production under Disney’s banner. Take with a grain of salt for now but this might be GDT’s super secret project..

Expect some announcement of Guillermo del Toro directing Doctor Strange any day now. He has been in talks ever since May, and he actually dropped out of “The Hobbit” in favor of “Doctor Strange”. Marvel is very pleased with the screenplay Thomas Donnelly and Josh Oppenheimer have shown them, but they are planning to bring another writer on board to make improvements on it. No talks have begun with actors, but Marvel has put together a “wishlist” that has names such as Nestor Carbonell, Skeet Ulrich.

Nestor Carbonnell (The Dark Knight) is the actor known for playing the ageless Richard in the great series Lost and Skeet Ulrich (TV’s Jericho) was last seen in Nimrod Antal‘s Armored.
So.. will any of those two names get to be DR. STRANGE?.. or better question.. is GDT going to direct the project? Remember, this isn’t something that GDT just found recently to be interesting.. he’s been interested in this particular character for about a couple of years now.

For the complete bio on DR. STRANGE, head on over to Marvel, but here’s a brief explanation, via Wikipedia…

“Stephen Strange is a world-renowned but selfish neurosurgeon, until a car accident damaged his hands, preventing him from conducting surgery. Depressed and scouring the world for a cure to his condition, Strange locates a hermit called the Ancient One in the Himalayas. After Strange selflessly attempts to thwart the Ancient One’s traitorous disciple, Baron Mordo (who would become one of Stange’s most enduring antagonists), he is taught the mystic arts.
As the Ancient One’s disciple, Strange encounters the entity Nightmare[48] and a number of odd mystical foes, before battling his eventual arch-foe: Dormammu, a warlord from an alternate dimension called the “Dark Dimension”. Strange is also aided by a nameless girl, who is eventually revealed to be the niece of the villain and called Clea. When Strange helps a weakened Dormammu drive off the rampaging beasts the Mindless Ones and return them to their prison, he is allowed to leave unchallenged.
Doctor Strange is a master magician, and was the holder of the title of “Sorcerer Supreme” of the Marvel Universe for many years. Eternity, the sentience of the Marvel Universe, has described Strange as “more powerful by far than any of your fellow humanoids”.”