Photo Credit: Marvel
Doctor Strange writer C. Robert Cargill has explained why Nightmare didn’t end up being the villain in the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring MCU movie.

Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange was released in United States theaters in 2016. Directed by Scott Derrickson, the film stars Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, and Benedict Wong as Wong.

What did C. Robert Cargill say about Doctor Strange and Nightmare?

While Mads Mikkelsen plays the villainous Kaecilius in Doctor Strange, the main antagonist of the movie was originally supposed to be Nightmare. Speaking with The Direct, Cargill explained why this plan ultimately didn’t come to fruition.

“Yeah, I mean, specifically, we wanted to have Nightmare be the villain of the first movie,” he said. “And [Marvel] loved the idea, but they were like, ‘That’s more of a second movie character.’

“But so, what we really wanted to do is… Me and Scott like playing around with alternate realities and dream logic and things like that. We’re big fans of that kind of psychonaut kind of space, going deep in your own dreams and the like. And so, we wrote some stuff for the first film [that] we wanted to try to incorporate in the second film of just that dream world, and Doctor Strange having to do battle with this guy who is the master of dreams, and the reality is his whims. And so, we were playing around with that kind of stuff.

“And I was not involved in Multiverse of Madness. I hadn’t been brought on yet before Scott decided to part ways. But yeah, Nightmare is such a great character, and I hope they get to play around with him someday. I’d love to go back and write a Nightmare script for them.”

Both Doctor Strange and the 2022 sequel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, are currently available to stream on Disney+.