Doctor Strange, HP Lovecraft, and the Eye of Agamotto. Yes, Mr. Spaihts, you have our attention...
NewsI know, I know...I shouldn't get too excited about things that directors and writers do to hype their movies on social media.
First it was the director of the Doctor Strange movie, Scott Derrickson, pushing my bottons with the unofficial image of Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange (with Talking Heads lyrics, no less!), or things like Pink Floyd album covers or T.Rex lyrics.
And now it's Doctor Strange writer Jon Spaihts getting into the act with HP Lovecraft and...props from the film? Is that Doctor Strange's Eye of Agamotto resting on that paper?
Check it out:
— Jon Spaihts (@jonspaihts) January 22, 2015
So, the poem is HP Lovecraft's "Azathoth," an ode to one of the horrific, incomprehensible nightmare deities that populate his work. If we can add Lovecraft to the list of influences of this film, which Kevin Feige once described as a "Ditko/Kubrick/Miyazaki/The Matrix mind-trip," well, that's certainly different enough.
Here's the excerpt from "Azathoth"
There came to that room wild streams of violet midnight glittering with dust of gold; vortices of dust and fire, swirling out of the ultimate spaces and heavy with perfumes from beyond the worlds. Opiate oceans poured there, litten by suns that the eye may never behold and having in their whirlpools strange dolphins and sea-nymphs of unrememberable deeps. Noiseless infinity eddied around the dreamer and wafted him away without even touching the body that leaned stiffly from the lonely window; and for days not counted in men’s calendars the tides of far spheres bare him gently to join the dreams for which he longed; the dreams that men have lost. And in the course of many cycles they tenderly left him sleeping on a green sunrise shore; a green shore fragrant with lotus-blossoms and starred by red camalotes.
You can read the rest here.
Even if these aren't actual props from the film, and are just atmospheric little visual teases, Mr. Spaihts and Mr. Derrickson sure know how to get a Strange fan's attention, don't they?
Huge hat-tip to brilliant comic writer Andy Diggle for pointing this out. Doctor Strange opens on November 4th, 2016. Our full Marvel movie release calendar is here. If you need a guide to some good Doctor Strange reading, check this out.
Mike Cecchini actually doesn't think the 1970s Doctor Strange movie is all that bad. He'll tell you why on Twitter.
