One of the most iconic villains from the ‘Doctor Strange‘ series is Baron Mordo. And in the new film, he’s portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor. In the trailers and from what we’ve heard from the set, it sounds like he’ll play the mentor and friend role rather than the arch nemesis. This is backed up by Kevin Feige’s recent comments.
“He is different in this movie. He is, as portrayed by Chiwetel, Strange’s advocate in the beginning of the movie. The Ancient One doesn’t necessarily see the potential in Strange that Mordo does. Mordo’s the one who talks The Ancient One into allowing him in. For this film, he is a partner of Strange and he is a mentor to Strange. That was something we wanted to play against in the comics because… There are some things that are too obvious for modern-day audiences. The jealous rival named Baron von Mordo, who turns against him when he shows any signs of a talent? We specifically did not want to do that.It’s one of the reasons we cast Chiwetel, because we wanted somebody who had an unbelievable authenticity in delivering a lot of wackadoo lines and exposition.“
It’s a very cliche and overdone style of script writing, and they’re clearly trying to avoid that and making something that fans can watch and anticipate without already knowing the ending. The Director, Scott Derrickson, went on to talk about how important creating something a little more original was important to him.
“that character was just really arch, just really arch, and he’s in the origin issue. Even in reading through, and I’ve read the entire body of Doctor Strange now … It was a difficult character, very difficult character to adapt because of the very basic archness that he plays all the way through there…. I felt that we had to start by establishing who he was before he got into that arch villainy in the comics. That’s a lot of what we’re doing in this movie. We’re sort of building a foundational understanding of who he was before the guy that you met in that comic, so that that turn isn’t an arch turn.“
