Marvel films have a villain problem, something that's been discussed again and again as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has evolved. While the film series has spawned beloved superheroes and interesting antagonists like Loki and Thanos, it's also had a trend of producing forgettable single-movie villains (Malekith, Ronan, Yellowjacket, Abomination, etc.) that serve more as a way to elevate the film's titular Avenger and push them a step closer to their superhero allies than offer any sort of actual threat.

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As the MCU builds up towards its anticipated face-off against the big bad Thanos, it's a problem that is going to be more pronounced in its latest batch of Avengers origin movies. When I got a chance to talk to Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson after a sneak peek screening event for the movie, I asked him how he plans to deal with that with this film's villain, Mads Mikkelsen's Kaecilius."I think there's some validity to that," he said. "What you have to do is you have to understand that you've got a limited amount of real estate; what can you do with that real estate that keeps them from being two-dimensional? In this case, I became very interested in Kaecilius's point of view and what makes him tick because, in the end, the villains that I have loved in movies, it all comes back to their ideology, what's their philosophy."What we do have is a villain who has a very cogent point of view," Derrickson added. "He's a man of ideas, and the way he thinks and what he is motivated by has some merit, and it pushes the movie into some moral ambiguities, into some moral questions, that I think is really interesting."Derrickson credited the longevity of some of Marvel's villains as being the reason they're elevated above their peers, noting, "Loki becomes iconic through Thor 2 and through The Avengers. He's very good in the first Thor movie, but I don't think that in movie as itself he would have been remembered as an iconic villain." He also referenced the Joker and Doc Ock as being particularly notable comic book movie villains because they came after the establishment of their iconic heroes. Derrickson called out two of his favorite film villains as examples of characters who are examples of what he is trying to accomplish with Kaecilius."My two favorite villain scenes in terms of classic villains are probably John Doe in the back of the police car in Seven describing why he was doing what he was doing, because he was horrifyingly cogent and sensible," Derrickson said. "That was the scariest part of that movie to me, watching it going, 'Oh s--t, he's making sense! This can't be! The world can't be like this!' And the Joker when he lays out his anarchistic philosophy to Harvey Dent. That's my favorite scene in that movie."Doctor Strange hits theaters on November 4th.

Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz