By this point in the game, Stan Lee has effectively been crowned the master of Hollywood cameos. Throughout the course of the Marvel Cinematic Universe alone, the comic book legend has played Hugh Hefner, a Xandarian Ladies’ Man and a postage delivery man who has trouble reading the words “Tony Stark,” among others, and that’s before we begin to factor in those blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances in Fox’s superhero universe.
Doctor Strange is no different, and as those who’ve seen it (which we assume is most of you) will know, Lee showed up briefly to have a laugh while reading The Doors of Perception. As it turns out, however, that wasn’t the only cameo that was shot for the movie, as James Gunn – yes, Gunn, not Scott Derrickson – actually filmed a few of them, before settling on the one that you saw up on screen back in November.
The director took to Facebook earlier today, as he so often does, to share with us what those other cameos involved, saying the following:
Doing my pal Scott Derrickson a solid and shooting Stan Lee’s cameo for Doctor Strange at the same time I was shooting some stunt work with Zoe Saldana – I run between sets on one soundstage. Stan laughing at The Doors of Perception was what ended up in the film, but we shot other options, such as –
– Stan reading a book and leaning into the guy next to him, saying, “Do you know what excelsior means?”
– Stan throwing his head back and laughing as hard as he can, yelling, “I’m laughing for no reason! I’m totally crazy!”
– And, my favorite, Stan laughing hysterically at a Garfield book, hooting, “He HATES Mondays but he LOVES lasagna!” Supposedly that one was in the film for a while, but it ended up being too long for the scene.
Happy Tuesday!
It’s interesting to hear that multiple cameos were shot for Doctor Strange, and makes us wonder what other Marvel films had alternate takes. As for the ones Gunn mentions though, they all sound pretty funny and while what he ended up going with for Scott Derrickson’s MCU effort did work out well, we can’t help but to wish that the ‘Excelsior’ one had been used instead.
That’s just our thoughts, though. Tell us, what do you think? Were you happy with Stan Lee’s cameo in Doctor Strange, or would you have preferred to see one of these alternate ones instead? Sound off in the usual place and let us know.