Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange saw Benedict Cumberbatch's Sorcerer Supreme face off against Mads Mikkelsen's Kaecillius, before ultimately matching wits with the Dread Dormammu. But neither of those characters was the creative team's first choice for the movie's primary antagonist.
Both director Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill have previously mentioned that they wanted Nightmare to be the villain in the first film, and would have pushed for him to be introduced in the sequel had they remained on the project.
Now, Cargill has elaborated on how the Fear Lord would have factored into the story.
"I mean, specifically, we wanted to have Nightmare be the villain of the first movie. And [Marvel Studios] loved the idea, but they were like, 'That's more of a second movie character.'"
"So, what we really wanted to do is… Me and Scott [Derrickson] 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."
Derricksom parted ways with the sequel over creative differences, and the movie that would become Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ended up utilizing the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) as its big bad.
"And I was not involved in Multiverse of Madness," added Cargill. "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."
Derrickson has indicated that he was not happy with the studio's decision to make the sequel a more Multiverse-focused story and dial back some of the horror elements, so it's entirely possible that we would have seen Nightmare had he remained on board.
We're not sure if Marvel still intends to introduce the character at some point, but a third Doctor Strange movie is rumoured to be in development, and we wouldn't be surprised if the studio wanted to return to a more standalone adventure following the events of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.