'Doctor Strange' director talks about the movie's superhero cape and how 'Aladdin' unintentionally inspired the cloak

Marvel

The INSIDER Summary

• The Cloak of Levitation is the ultimate scene-stealer in "Doctor Strange."
• Fans have compared the cloak's personality to that of Aladdin's magic carpet.
• Director Scott Derrickson tells INSIDER they never thought of the similarity until post-production.
• He says the cloak originally didn't have a lot of screen time in the film.
• They kept looking for ways to add more of it.

If you've seen Marvel's latest superhero movie "Doctor Strange," you'll know one of the breakout characters of the film wasn't even a human character. Strange's cloak of levitation took on a life of its own as it became protective of its new owner and taking down some of the film's villains. 

If you're a big Disney fan, the giant red cape may have felt reminiscent of the magic carpet in another movie, "Aladdin," something many have pointed out since the film's release last November.

That wasn't the original intent, but director Scott Derrickson acknowledges you can definitely see the similarities between the two.

"The idea of the magic carpet was definitely the closest thing you can look to for what [the cloak] is," Derrickson recently told INSIDER ahead of the film's release on Blu-ray and DVD. "At the end, it's got a personality, it protects and has opinions about things and attitudes about things. And it's a little bit wildly unpredictable."

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"I never thought of 'Aladdin' and I don't think 'Aladdin' really ever came up until we were in post-production and then we realized that that's what we had," Derrickson added. "I think it was much more of us realizing that that's what we had done and recognizing that as being a really good thing."

Disney

The cape itself underwent numerous designs by Marvel's costume designer Alexandra Byrne. According to the film's production notes, a total of 18 cloaks were created including a "hero" version for what are referred to as "walking and talking" scenes, an action cloak, and cloaks of various weights, lengths, and shapes.

"It really is an amazing design that she [Byrne] did. And, she was basing it and rooting it in the comics, but she added specifics that are just so beautiful. Seeing it in person and seeing how Benedict wore it, I was so amazed by it, struck by it, so automatically my love for it quadrupled," he said. "But then as we started to do the first bits of its activity, it became very clear that it was so good and so fun that we were going to need to add more."

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While the cloak ended up receiving some of the biggest laughs in the movie, Derrickson said it actually wasn't originally planned to be in the film all that much until they filmed its first scene. 

"It really came to life obviously in that first fight scene where it does all kinds of things. In the first draft of that script, that scene, the cloak wasn't nearly as present as he was," said Derrickson. "But after shooting that scene, I then realized we don't have enough of this cloak in the movie now because he gets such a great introduction. So then we kept looking for great comedic moments and fun moments to make sure it had a presence all the way through the end of the movie."

Marvel

"That's a case study in how I think filmmaking demands you to be open and flexible and sort of listen to where the movie wants to go. The movie wanted to have more activity from that cloak than what we initially intended, and luckily we all listened and turned it into a true character."

"Doctor Strange" is now out on Blu-ray and DVD and digital HD. 

You can check out a behind-the-scenes look at the film below:

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