Doom is a hot property right now. The 2016 game received near-universal critical acclaim by boiling the series back to its hi-octane, demon-smashing, heavy metal roots. Its sequel, Doom Eternal, was similarly fun and while it wasn’t received quite as positively as its predecessor, it still kicks an unbelievable amount of ass. The Doom Slayer has even joined Mario, Link, and Kirby in Super Smash Bros, albeit as a Mii Fighter gunner costume rather than a full character.
Sadly, this success hasn’t translated to the silver screen. The 2005 movie was a stinker and 2019’s Doom: Annihilation was such garbage that the makers of the game released a statement explaining they had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Now Rosamund Pike, who starred in the 2005 Doom alongside Karl Urban and Dwayne Johnson, says she still feels guilty about the movie. Speaking while promoting The Wheel of Time, she said:
“I feel partly to blame in that respect because I think I failed just through ignorance and innocence to understand, to fully get a picture of what Doom meant to fans at that point. I wasn’t a gamer. I didn’t understand. If I knew what I knew now, I would have dived right into all of that and got fully immersed in it like I do now.
And I just didn’t understand. I feel embarrassed, really. I feel embarrassed that I was sort of ignorant of what it meant and I didn’t know how to go about finding out because the internet wasn’t the place it is now for the fans to speak up. I wouldn’t have known where to find them. I do now! In fact, I now have many friends who were massive fans of the game and I just wish I had known them then.”
I don’t think Pike should beat herself up about this. Of all the things wrong with the 2005 movie, she ranks way down the list. Most blame should go to the script, which seemed faintly embarrassed of the source material. That said, it does at least have that awesome FPS sequence that still impresses. And anyway, in comparison to the deeply embarrassing Doom: Annihilation, it looks like Citizen Kane.
But with the series riding high again, there are rumors of a movie or TV series that’ll deliver a more faithful adaptation. The current game series proved that you have to go big or go home when it comes to Doom. I don’t want to see cheapo sets and badly CGI’d monsters as we’ve seen in the existing movies, I want the intense flesh palaces and gargantuan creatures that look like they’ve stepped out of a heavy metal album cover.
So c’mon id Software, let’s see Doom brought to live-action in all its chainsaw-whirring rip-n-tearing glory.