According to reports, popular British actor Benedict Cumberbatch is in final talks to play the title role in the Marvel film Dr. Strange. Cumberbatch was considered early on for this highly coveted role, but negotiations broke down, and a number of other hot actors were in the running, including Ryan Gosling, Academy Award-winner Jared Leto and serious contender Joaquin Phoenix, who recently bowed out. Now, filmmakers have come back around to Cumberbatch. Schedule conflicts were cited as the reason he didn’t take the part sooner. But with filming on Dr. Strange postponed, he could be available.

Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1963, the intriguing Stephan Vincent Strange is a brilliant but arrogant and greedy neurosurgeon whose career is destroyed when his hands are shattered in a car accident. After searching long and hard for a way to restore the use of his hands, he encounters a hermit called the Ancient One who teaches him sorcery and helps to bring out his more compassionate side. Instead of going back to his lucrative medical career, Strange becomes Sorcerer Supreme and is compelled to protect Earth from both magical and mystical threats.

Cumberbatch would seem a perfect fit for this character, not only because of the physical resemblance, but because the actor has excelled at playing extremely intelligent and complex individuals, such as Sherlock Holmes in the current BBC series Sherlock.

Set to direct the movie is Scott Derrickson, best known for writing and directing horror films, including Sinister and Deliver Us from Evil.

The screenplay is being drafted by writing partners Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer (Conan the Barbarian) and Jon Spaihts, known for the 2012 feature Prometheus.

Dr. Strange is expected to arrive in theaters nationwide on July 8, 2016.