Universal Ready to Rip and Tear a New Doom Adaptation
We just found some pretty incredible news for those who love video game-to-film adaptations: actress/singer-songwriter Nina Bergman tweeted that she’s joined the cast of a new Universal adaptation of Doom, the 1993 video game series from developer id Software. Bergman states the film will be shooting soon in Bulgaria and that she will be working with a “super cool Director”, who she also describes as “…an actors director, not scared of taking chances, thinks outside the box, writes crazy cool female characters and dialog.” This was a response to a now deleted tweet from writer/director Tony Giglio, who wrote three of the Death Race films and directed Timber Falls, Extraction, and S.W.A.T.: Under Siege.
Bergman describes the film as the “next Doom“, so it’s uncertain whether or not this will be a sequel, a reboot, or a whole new reimagining.
Wow I’m doing the next “Doom” movie w Universal Pictures! I just signed all the paperwork💃🏼I get to go back to Bulgaria again and work with some of my favorite people💕This movie w a super cool Director AND my new record coming out, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world🍀 pic.twitter.com/q8t4iI0bgO
— Nina Bergman (@ninabergman) April 17, 2018
Universal released a film adaptation in 2005 with stars Karl Urban and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak and drew in about $55 million off a $60 million budget. Not a critical success by any stretch of the imagination, the film has since garnered a cult following, as evidenced by our own Matt Donato’s recent appreciation in his Drinking With the Dread column.
While I’m most certainly excited for a new adaptation of Doom, I’m curious how this one will play out. Bartkowiak’s adaptation didn’t touch upon perhaps the most important aspect of the series, which is that all the monsters and demons are denizens of Hell, which sends the “Doom Marine” into the bowels of the ultimate inferno to wage war on their own turf. Admittedly, to pull something like that off and make it look good will certainly cost a pretty penny, so who knows if Universal is ready to make that gamble with this new adaptation? If they do decide to go that route, I have a feeling that the film will automatically be seen in a better light that the 2005 film.
This news also comes ahead of this year’s E3 festival, where rumors are swirling that Bethesda will announce a sequel to 2016’s Doom, which went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed releases that year, including winning Best Action Game from the 2016 The Game’s Awards. If this is also true, we could be seeing a resurgence of Doom in all the best ways possible.
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