After months of rumors, Mads Mikkelsen has been confirmed to be part of next fall’s ‘Doctor Strange.’ “Mads is playing our main villain,” announced executive producer Stephen Broussard.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who is also an exec producer on the film elaborated:
“Mads’ character is a sorcerer who breaks off into his own sect. [He] believes that the Ancient One is just protecting her own power base and that the world may be better off if we were to allow some of these other things through.”
The Ancient One is, of course, a powerful sorcerer, played by Tilda Swinton, who is also the mentor to the title character, former surgeon Doctor Stephen Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Baron Karl Mordo, portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
But fans clamoring for Mikkelsen to portray one of the Sorcerer Supreme’s famous baddies may be off-track. Many have speculated that the former ‘Hannibal’ star would portray the flame-headed Dormammu or the dream-haunting Nightmare. Even the Marvel equivalent of Satan, Mephisto has been posited. It does not appear that this is the case, as Broussard happily declared:
“I’ve seen lots of names thrown around. No one has quite picked the name that we’ve chosen for him. It would be fun to conceal that, if we can.”
True, some of the Marvel Studios heroes have faced off against the villains most commonly associated with them: Captain America/The Red Skull; Thor/Loki; and Iron Man/The Mandarin (kinda). But the cinematic universe has also utilized lesser-known foes like Aldrich Killian (‘Iron Man 3’ played by Guy Pierce), Malekith (‘Thor: The Dark World’, Christopher Eccleston) and even the very first, Obadiah Stane (‘Iron Man’, Jeff Bridges). (Fun fact: Mikkelsen was originally up for the role of Malekith but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.) In ‘Ant-Man’, a minor villain named Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) was completely recast, giving him the armored identity of Yellowjacket, an identity that, in the comics, belonged to Ant-Man/Hank Pym himself at a different phase of his career.
While Broussard and Feige were mum on the character that Mikkelsen is playing, Feige at least gave a little tease as to the nature of the threat that Doctor Strange would be facing, saying:
“We will take audiences through sort of a guide to the multiverse, other dimensions, and there are amazing things out there — wonders that are going to be hopefully visually extremely interesting and unique to this movie. But there are also very scary things in these other dimensions.”
With the obvious choices eliminated, who are some more obscure Doctor Strange enemies that Mikkelsen might be playing?
Doctor Strange’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Mads Mikkelsen opens in theaters on November 4, 2016.
Source: Entertainment Weekly