Director Scott Derrickson made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut helming Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character. This was, arguably, the first magical character to enter the MCU and had a lot of responsibility to teach the audience about a different corner of the Marvel mythology than they were used to seeing with the Avengers characters.

While it’s not yet clear if Derrickson will be back behind the camera for Doctor Strange 2, many fans would like nothing more than to let him continue building out the mythos that he has already started to develop. It appears that Derrickson also wants to make his return to Doctor Strange and has some strong feelings, concerning who he would like the Sorcerer Supreme of the MCU to go up against.

Answering questions sent to the hashtag #AskScottD, Derrickson reveals that the villain he would most like to see Doctor Strange face next is Nightmare. This isn’t his first time hinting that Nightmare might be in Doctor Strange’s future; in an interview with Screen Rant we asked him about Nightmare and Derrickson replied: “I wouldn’t rule anybody out at this point.”

Possibly Nightmare, but he’s a tricky villain to get right. And you can’t tell the story of Doctor Strange w/out eventually dealing w/Clea. https://t.co/C4mZYgGkkA— Scott Derrickson (@scottderrickson) March 2, 2017

Nightmare is a classic Doctor Strange villain who has been around since 1963. He has close ties to Clea, who Derrickson mentions in his Tweet and is a long-standing love interest of Stephen Strange, and to Dazzler, a very popular X-Men villain. He also has an important storyline dealing with Loki, a breakout character of the MCU.

As his name suggests, Nightmare manipulates people with his magic by haunting their dreams. Nightmare is what is known as a Class 3 Demon who is highly intelligent if not particular strong. His power work by trapping unconscious sleepers’ astral forms and torturing them there. He can also summon a number of lower demons, meaning that he has the potential to create and army that could go up against the likes of Doctor Strange, Wong and their allies.

Odds are good that Derrickson will be tapped to continue the saga of Doctor Strange, based on his success with the first movie. Although Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has been setup as a future Doctor Strange film antagonist, there could certainly be room for Nightmare. Seeing as Nightmare doesn’t have a ton of depth to him as a character, having him and Mordo serve as dual “villains” in Doctor Strange 2 could help the film to avoid the MCU’s frequently-cited villain problem.

Source: Scott Derrickson

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