The future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a little bit of a mystery as Marvel Studios has kept their plans pretty close to their chest with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 on the horizon. We know we are getting Ant-Man and the Wasp and a Captain Marvel set in the ’90s. However, we don’t really know much about where they plan to go from there. Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn had previously hinted they will expand their cosmic universe.
But we are getting some details about what a possible Doctor Strange sequel could look like. Writer C. Robert Cargill recently revealed in a Q&A following a screening of Doctor Strange in Austin, Texas that the Doctor Strange sequel villain will be Nightmare. “Nightmare will be the villain,” he said.
Nightmare was once the servant of the being known as Shuma-Gorath. However, he realized he was much too powerful to be a mere servant and he fled Shuma-Gorath by entering the Dream Dimension. He quickly took over the dimension and rapidly grew in power eventually becoming dependent on the fear he caused in order to survive.
While, he appears as a demon-like creature in his own realm he has been known to take on a physical form in the human realm. In fact, in one story arc he becomes Edvard Haberdash and opens up a nightclub called Club Fear. He would use Club Fear to feed off the club goers fears and increase his powers.
This might come as a surprise to many who watched Doctor Strange as the post-credit scene showed Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mordo taking an evil turn. After aiding Doctor Strange and being a loyal servant to the Ancient One for much of the film, he felt betrayed by the Ancient One and Doctor Strange as they broke their own rules in order to protect Earth from Dormammu.
https://youtu.be/HRDZnBqBFW8
Cargill addressed that:
“Marvel movies work in threes. They also work outside of their threes. Some of the better Marvel films have more than one villain in them. Me and Scott have not laid the groundwork for it but what I can say is that I have a feeling that whatever Nightmare is involved with, Baron Mordo, being somebody who considers himself the defender of natural law will have something to do with it.”
He would go on to explain that Mordo’s character arc will follow that of the comics and they hope to bring his character on par with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.
“For those of you who have ever read the comics, you know that Baron Mordo has a very particular arc, and that’s something we discussed with Chiwetel while working on the first movie. And part of the reason Chiwetel wanted to play Mordo was because he has a definitive ending as a character and it’s such a fascinating ending. And I do know that whether we’re attached or not, that Marvel plans on working towards that ending and fully realizing Mordo as more than just a cardboard cutout villain, but actually taking him to kind of Loki levels of awesomeness. That’s the goal with him.”
He concluded by saying:
“That’s the thing. If we do another film it’s going to be weirder than this one. That’s the only way we’ll do another one is if we get to get weird.”
At this point, this is all speculation as neither Cargill nor Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson have been brought back into the Marvel Studios stable at this time. It’s possible Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios are waiting to see where the chips fall after Avengers 4 before going full steam ahead with the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Are you excited to see Nightmare show up in Doctor Strange 2? Do you think Mordo can reach Loki levels of awesomeness? I have to say when he took down Benjamin Bratt’s Jonathan Pangborn it definitely made a huge impression on me!