A movie adaptation of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko‘s 1963 comic book Dr. Strange has been in and out of development hell for years now, with many different studios and talents being attached and detached from the project along the way.

It appears now another attempt at the movie is on the way with the announcement that Marvel Studios has gone out and hired Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write a script. The duo recently worked on the script for Marcus Nispel’s Conan reboot, as well as a script for an adaptation of the video game Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and a draft of Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens, which went on to the hands of Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof.

Dr. Strange tells the story of a brilliant neurosurgeon who’s also just a little full of himself. One day he’s in a terrible accident, which damages his hand beyond repair enough to ever perform surgery again. After a long struggle with accepting this twist of fate, he sought out a powerful being known only as the Ancient One, who denies him his request to fix his hands. Instead, Strange asks to become the Ancient One’s disciple in an effort to stand up to Mordo, a pupil who shows himself as a traitor. Over the years, Strange learns many great powers, and eventually becomes one of the great sorcerers ever to live.

Whether this attempt at bringing Dr. Strange to the big screen will succeed remains to be seen, but it looks like the best chance yet. It also looks like if this is so, it will be one of the first Marvel titles to be released under Walt Disney, who acquired the comic book banner for $4 billion last August.

[Source: Deadline]