Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson was relieved he didn’t have to try and shoehorn references to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe when he brought the Sorcerer Supreme to the big screen last fall.

No Iron Man cameo, no Spider-Man tease, no Guardians of the Galaxy nod. Nothing. Well, almost nothing.

“It wasn’t something I wanted to do,” he says of the superhero film – the 14th in Marvel’s ongoing film series. “It wouldn’t have made sense in this movie. Doctor Strange isn’t part of the MCU yet,” he adds.

But that didn’t stop him from slipping in a bit with Thor and an Easter Egg nod to Ant-Man – something that he confirms in the commentary track for the home video release of Strange, which is available digitally now and on Blu-ray Feb. 28.

During one of the film’s psychedelic sequences, when Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is travelling across different dimensions, fans spotted what appeared to be the Quantum Realm from Ant-Man.

“This image here is obviously a nod to Ant-Man and the Quantum Realm, acknowledging that as one of the mysterious realms of existence,” Derrickson says in his commentary track.

Created by Stan Lee and Steven Ditko, Doctor Strange is Marvel’s trippiest hero delving into the worlds of magic and mysticism, so the Ant-Man plug nicely ties together the franchises.

“The film is definitely true to the comics in that it’s a righteous, mind trip of an action movie,” Derrickson says, with a laugh. “I’m just happy Marvel didn’t hold me back from how weird I wanted the movie to be.”

With fans now able to re-experience the film with 80 minutes of never-before-seen bonus material, we caught up with Derrickson down the line from Los Angeles to talk about Marvel’s newest cinematic hero.

Was there anything you couldn’t do in the movie because it might impact other storylines that were going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

There was one scene that we shot that was in the script that we ended up cutting out. I’m not going to say what it is, but... it’s good enough to put in a future movie. I think Marvel was incredibly supportive in letting me try to push the boundaries not just of what a Marvel movie could be, but what a movie can be in general. My mantra of wanting a big visual effects movie that wasn’t about destruction, but that was more about creativity, they really supported that all the way to the end.

Thor appears at the end. Why did you choose not to have any additional cameos?

There’s really no reason for Strange to be integrated into the MCU until the tag scene when he meets Thor. There wasn’t any real interest or desire to be slipping those other characters into this film. This is him, on his own journey.

There were a lot of actors linked to the role of Doctor Strange. What made Benedict perfect?

I think it was a combination of his real-world intelligence – to play someone who is brilliant you have to have an edge of intellectual brilliance, which Benedict has. I believe if Benedict committed himself in real life to neurosurgery, he’d be the top neurosurgeon in London in New York.

Also, he hadn’t shown it yet, but I just suspected from watching his previous work that he could be an action star, and I was right about that.

Concept art of Ryan Gosling as Strange recently surfaced. What did you think of that?

I’ve seen concept art, online fan stuff for just about everybody at some point.

You’ve directed several horror films. How did that prepare you for the MCU?

I think the horror that I did was somewhat unique in that I had actors that typically wouldn’t do horror – Ethan Hawke (Sinister), Eric Bana (Deliver Us From Evil), Laura Linney (The Exorcism of Emily Rose). It was always my goal as a horror director to have one foot in the supernatural and the other foot in a real, dramatic world. When you get to Doctor Strange, you’re getting into the fantastical in a way that the rest of the MCU hasn’t before and I think I was a good choice for the role because of that approach. There are some performance scenes in Doctor Strange, the fight scene between Rachel and Benedict for example, that feel like they could come from an indie drama because those are real emotions.

It’s the combination of those two things – the fantastical and the very human, natural – that I think is the bridge point between horror and this film.

What can fans expect from Doctor Strange 2?

There haven’t been any announcements, so I can’t speak to that. That’s yet to come...

This could lead to some controversy, but what’s your favourite Marvel film so far?

That’s easy. Guardians of the Galaxy.

Twitter: @markhdaniell

MDaniell@postmedia.com