Doctor Strange: Who Is The Villain?

When Doctor Strange hits theaters this November, fans will be introduced to magic in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time. While they learn about magic through the eyes of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Stephen Strange, they’ll also see the stronger and darker side from his foe.

Doctor Strange will face a former sorcerer from Kamar-Taj, the mystical city where he receives his training, who has turned to villainy in his quest for power.

Mads Mikkelsen plays Kaecilius, the main antagonist of the film, Marvel president Kevin Feige told ComicBook.com and other reporters during a set visit earlier this year. Kaecilius is not alone, however, giving Strange and the other masters a lot to handle.

“Along with some of his followers who were called Zealots, Kaecilius defects from Kamar-Taj,” Feige said. “They believe that The Ancient One is not being truthful in the way that she is teaching magic, [and] believe she’s withholding secrets.”

The Zealots have no problem with the extra-dimensional nature of magic in this world – and even with it leaking in haphazardly.

“Maybe it’s not a bad thing if other dimensions absorb our reality; that, in fact, could lead to benefits such as immortality,” Feige said. “It is definitely a philosophical break that Kaecilius has from the rest of the sorcerers.”

While Kaecilius is the main antagonist, it sounds like a larger threat may be looming behind-the-scenes. Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson teased that Kaecilius is empowered by something else, something otherworldly when he sat down with reporters.

“What we wanted was a character that was rooted in the real,” he said. “This is certainly what I was pitching from the beginning, was an antagonist who was rooted in the real world, so that there could be an intimate relatability between Strange and his adversary, but who was empowered by something else, by something otherworldly, and connected to something else otherworldly, which comes straight from the comics. I’ll say this, another character straight from the comics. That became interesting to me.”

It’s not the only hint of a possible secondary background villain, with most signs pointing to Dormammu, that was offered up on set. Don’t expect to see the demon god front and center for the whole movie (if at all), though. Derrickson likened the idea to that of Sauron and Saruman in Lord of the Rings.

“I always loved the Sauron, Saruman idea in Lord of the Rings, even though you never see Sauron except, I think, in the prologue. I think that’s the only time you ever see him in that trilogy, but what a presence and what a power,” said Derrickson. The director did hint that we’ll get something out of the teases.

“We do more than that with this other dimensional power, but I like that idea, so that Strange wasn’t combating something huge and fantastical all the way through the movie that had no human relatability. Every version of that that we would visit felt strained and felt like too high of a bar, that we wouldn’t clear that bar given everything else that we had to establish in the movie. Does that make sense? I think it’s working really well.”

Ultimately, he hopes that fans watching the film might have moments where they realize that what Kaecilius is saying makes sense, likening him to John Doe in Seven and the Joker in The Dark Knight.

“I’m not saying our villain is as great as John Doe or The Joker, as Heath Ledger’s Joker, but he is a man of ideas, and, to me, that’s what makes villains compelling.”

Doctor Strange hits theaters November 4, 2016.