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New Doom Movie Will Be a Direct to Video or Digital Release
It appears Universal’s new Doom movie is likely headed straight to DVD or a digital platform. Doom is the iconic game series that helped make first-person shooters one of the most popular genres in gaming. The simple premise of nearly all the games finds a lone marine stranded on a Mars base when a portal to Hell opens up; players need to blast through swarms of demons using shotguns, rocket launchers, and chainsaws to survive.
The game spawned a Doom movie in 2005, fronted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Karl Urban. Despite featuring a good cast and a cool FPS sequence towards the finale, the movie received near universal scorn, and even Johnson himself has disowned it in recent years. The movie also ditched the Hell angle, turning the demons of the game into generic monsters caused by a lab experiment gone wrong. The movie failed to recoup its budget, so a sequel never arrived.
It came as a surprise when news of a new Doom movie emerged online, with actress/singer Nina Bergman revealing she’d signed on for the new movie. Now Variety has shed some more light on the project, with an NBC/Universal spokesperson revealing the movie is being handled by Universal 1440 Entertainment. This arm of the studio exclusively produces direct-to-DVD movies like Cult Of Chucky and Hard Target 2, and while it hasn’t been officially confirmed, it’s very likely means the new Doom is also heading straight to video or a streaming platform like Netflix.
While this news may disappoint some fans, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. There have been a lot of solid straight to DVD action and horror movies in recent years, including 1440 Entertainment’s own Cult Of Chucky. Outside of the film being shot in Bulgaria and Nina Bergman’s casting, no other details have been revealed, but given the popularity of the game, it’s easy to imagine Universal will be giving the new Doom movie more of a promotional push than the standard straight to DVD release.
There’s still no confirmation on who is directing the new Doom, though tweets from Nina Bergman to director Tony Giglio (S.W.A.T: Under Siege) seem to heavily imply he has a connection to the project.
The game franchise was given a glorious rebirth with 2016’s Doom, which was praised for its tongue in cheek tone and addictive, fast-paced gameplay. If the new movie wanted to distance itself from the 2005 version, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take some notes from what that game got right.
