He played the world's most famous detective and the Marvel universe's most powerful sorcerer at the same time. What almost nobody knows is how close those two roles came to cancelling each other out — and which one he fought harder to keep.

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He played the world's most famous detective and the Marvel universe's most powerful sorcerer at the same time. What almost nobody knows is how close those two roles came to cancelling each other out — and which one he fought harder to keep.

2026/08/20 Report

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Benedict Cumberbatch Had to Choose Between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Strange. Here's Which One He Fought Harder to Protect — And Why the Answer Is Not What You'd Expect

The overlap, at its most intense, was 2015 and 2016.

Marvel's Phase Three was being assembled.

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Doctor Strange was in pre-production, with Cumberbatch confirmed in the title role and the studio's standard multi-picture framework beginning to take shape around the commitment. Meanwhile, Sherlock Series Four was in development — a process that, given the scheduling challenges of the preceding years, had already been delayed once and could not easily be delayed again.

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