Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling would be wise to petition Marvel Studios to allow them to include a villain that nearly appeared in the Doctor Strange sequel in Ghost Rider. Marvel Studios' D23 announcements have made the projects discussed at San Diego Comic-Con feel like yesterday's news. There really isn't a graceful way to go about revealing the cast of a new X-Men movie, though.
Gosling does his best work when he's flying under the radar. Nobody expected Project Hail Mary to be the critical and box-office success it was. While Marvel Studios productions usually don't have to fight an uphill battle to get attention, Ghost Rider isn't a character that fills seats like, say, Spider-Man or Wolverine. The Spirit of Vengeance is going to need all the help he can get when he rides into theaters in 2028.
Reinforcements are likely to come in the form of Mephisto, a demon who made his MCU debut in the Disney+ series Ironheart, played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Ghost Rider and Mephisto have a longstanding rivalry in Marvel Comics, mostly because the former owes the curse that haunts his every waking moment to the latter. Making Mephisto the main villain of Ghost Rider would be the easy choice. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right one.
Since Ghost Rider has been part of the Marvel Universe for so long, he's run into his fair share of evildoers. One bad guy who tends to give him fits is Nightmare, the ruler of the Dream Dimension. Nightmare has been known to drag Ghost Rider into his domain to torment or exploit him. The Spirit of Vengeance's run-ins with him rarely leave him better off than he started.
An interesting anecdote about Nightmare is that he was nearly the villain in the Doctor Strange follow-up. When Scott Derrickson was still on board to direct the project, he envisioned Nightmare as Dormammu's MCU successor. Sam Raimi didn't share Derrickson's enthusiasm about Nightmare, opting to replace him with Scarlet Witch when he signed on to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Wanda Maximoff breaking bad didn't sit right with many fans, since she had grown so much in WandaVision. Multiverse of Madness also didn't do itself any favors because it killed its villain off at the end. Maybe it would've been an easier pill for fans to swallow if Nightmare had taken her place.
There's no way to know for sure whether Nightmare would've fixed all the problems that ailed Multiverse of Madness. However, it's hard to imagine a world in which he's a detriment to Levy and Gosling's Ghost Rider movie, especially if his inclusion leads to an epic MCU team-up.
Nightmare Could Have His Eyes On More Than Just Ghost Rider In The MCU
Derrickson didn't just pull Nightmare's name out of a hat and consider him for Doctor Strange 2. In the comics, Nightmare spends his free time cooking up ways to get the Sorcerer Supreme in his grasp, hoping to steal his tremendous power. Strange gets the better of his foe more often than not in the source material. But Nightmare has a clean slate with which to work on the big screen.
Perhaps Ghost Rider's first adventure in the MCU can see him get dragged to the Dream Dimension, where he wrestles with all the nightmares that have been keeping him awake at night. No matter which iteration of the Spirit of Vengeance Gosling plays, they're all tortured; no other kind of person would be willing to make a deal with the devil. Nightmare can take advantage of that and set his sights on another hero at the same time.
The last time Strange appeared in live-action was in Multiverse of Madness' post-credits scene, shortly after he grew his third eye. Clea, a relative of Dormammu, came to him with a request: help her stop the incursions he caused when he dreamwalked. Strange agreed and traveled with her to the Dark Dimension.
It remains to be seen what became of Strange after he walked through that portal. He's notably absent from Avengers: Doomsday's marketing, which suggests things didn't go smoothly in the Dark Dimension. If Strange never made it home, it's possible that he fell into the clutches of a villain, possibly Nightmare.
Being the cause of immeasurable destruction would weigh on anyone, even a Master of the Mystic Arts. Nightmare might be taking advantage of Strange's moment of weakness and taking him for all he's worth. If Ghost Rider finds himself in the same boat, he's sure to be sympathetic to Strange and lend him a hand (or, in his case, a chain).
Once that ball gets rolling, it's going to be hard to stop it. There have already been calls for a Midnight Sons movie set in the MCU. A Ghost Rider and Doctor Strange team-up would be the first step toward making that dream a reality.
