‘Doctor Strange’ Film Updates: Benedict Cumberbatch’s Character Origins Explained in More Depth in Newly Released Featurette

‘Doctor Strange’ recently dropped its latest featurette with principal cast members explaining the origins of Benedict Cumberbatch’s titular character.

According to Variety, the newly released featurette for director Scott Derrickson’s upcoming superhero film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) featured interviews from principal cast members Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Tilda Swinton.

The featurette began with clips of Stephen Strange as a mortal neurosurgeon doing heroic work in an operating room. Cumberbatch explains that his character was brilliant yet “incredibly arrogant” and found the need to control fate and destiny.

Swinton, who plays Stephen’s mentor in the mystical arts The Ancient One, then points out that Strange eventually gets into a car crash and loses the use of his hands. She says, “He spends all his money having operations to have his hands put back together and they don’t work.” She adds, “He spends all his last pennies on a ticket and goes to Nepal.”

Ejiofor joins in saying, “He’s searching for a cure for his hands and the issues that he’s having. My character introduces him to this different, very mystical world. Ejiofor plays Baron Karl Mordo, a former student of The Ancient One.

Cumberbatch then explains that upon meeting and subsequently training under The Ancient One, Stephen gets a grasp of the spiritual dimension. Meanwhile, producer Kevin Feige explained that they were putting more emphasis on the villains of the film. He said, “These are people who become seduced by what they find on the other side. They are interested in spilling the barriers between these dimensions which would annihilate our universe.”

Mads Mikkelsen is plays the antagonistic Kaecilius, who breaks off from The Ancient One’s sect to form his own. Kaecilius is a powerful sorcerer and was a disciple of Baron Mordo in the original Marvel comic books. According to /Film, Feige explained Kaecilius’ intentions saying, “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.”

Mikkelsen explained, “He’s not a villain in that way — he’s a man who believes in something else than the hero. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to make the planet look wonderful or he wants to save the world as well, but he has a different way of doing it. He is the antagonist, of course, but he’s not necessarily wrong.”

‘Doctor Strange’ is an upcoming action-adventure and fantasy film directed by Scott Derrickson with a screenplay prepared by Derrickson and Robert C. Cargill. It is produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in the United States.

It is scheduled to be released on November 4, 2016 and is intended as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Three.