The first one was also supposed to be Horror film influenced as well. Thats why they hired Derrickson as he was a horror director. For whatever reason Marvel lightened up the tone a bit, but not in a bad way. Strange is definitely in my top 3 of origin films from marvel, but I'm curious to know what kind of "creative differences" marvel and Derrickson had to make derrickson drop out.
Will be interesting af to see what Raimi does with this character. I think he will handle Doctor Strange a lot better than he did Spider Man.