Because this worked so well with the original Punisher, Captain America, and Fantastic Four movies? And more recently with Man-Thing and Punisher: War Zone?
From CHUD:
Marvel Studios is currently taking meetings with writers and directors to work on small scale movies based on some of their third tier characters. The movies would cost in the range of 20 to 40 million dollars (very small when we’re talking studio films) and would allow them to take risks with less obvious characters and with interesting talent.
Filmmakers are being offered their pick of characters whose names are only familiar to comic fans. Properties like Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Dazzler and Power Pack are among the many that are being tossed around right now. And the attitude seems to be that Marvel is open to bringing any of their characters to the screen at the right price point.
Not sure why Dr. Strange qualifies as low budget fare, nor should Ka-Zar. Actually, you know who should be happy about this news? Charles Band. He tried to get the rights to do a Dr. Strange movie back in the early 90’s but, when Marvel said no, he ended up doing his own version with Jeffrey Combs, Dr. Mordrid, still one of my favorite B-movies. I’d love to see a Dr. Strange movie, and there are definitely some other characters in the Marvel U that would lend themselves to a $20-40 million budget film pretty well. What about you guys? Who would you like to see a low budget flick made out of? Morbius, The Living Vampire? Blade? Howard The Duck, Part 2?