Introduction

This week is Doom week here at TwitchGuru.com and we have several articles to delight you about it. Today we talk about the making of the movie. Come back later in the week for other interviews and commentary.

Once the game Doom became a phenomenon, it wasn't too long before Hollywood came knockin' on id Software's door. But it would take over ten years for the theatrical version to reach the screen, the rights moving between several different studios before a deal was finally closed with producers John Wells and Lorenzo diBonaventura. Here's the inside story of how the film finally came to be, and where video game movies could be heading from here.

Securing The Deal

JOHN WELLS

One day, John Wells got a call from his agents at Creative Artists Agency. The rights to turn Doom into a film had become available, and Wells was very interested. He wasn't just an out-of-touch studio executive trying to latch onto something hot. Wells played Doom 1 for years before he got a shot at making the movie. As a producer, he saw the possibilities for a major motion picture right away. He called Lorenzo diBonaventura - who had been president of worldwide theatrical production at Warner Brothers, and was now an independent producer - and said, "Hey, let's jump on this."

"For one thing, Doom just has a great name," says Wells. "It's a great movie title...DOOM! We felt it was a title that would attract people who weren't gamers. There are other titles that outside the game world take a little explaining, where Doom was one you would be attracted to or interested in even if you hadn't played the game. The trailers and the television ads were not just geared towards gamers, they were geared towards anyone who wanted a good, scary, violent, bloody experience for Halloween."

The rights to Doom bounced around between several studios before landing at Universal. If you were a producer interested in optioning Doom, id Software offered a great deal, but the film had to go into production quickly. Wells and diBonaventura could have the rights for a nominal fee, but if they didn't have a script and approval to make the movie at the end of 18 months, the rights reverted back to id. "That was very smart on id's part," says Wells. "The studio knew right from the beginning that if we were gonna do it, we'd have to move fast."

It goes without saying that films based on video game movies are usually awful, and with Doom, Wells wanted to break that cycle. With a new generation of games and fans, the time was right. "I think people looked at comic book movies and movies based on games as something they could do on the cheap," he says. "I particularly think that people in the film business sort of looked down at the gaming industry, and that's changed. The games are very sophisticated, they're interesting, they're compelling, they're kind of whole experiences, which they weren't 15 to 20 years ago."

Comic book films couldn't get any respect at the studios until X-Men reinvented the genre. A great video game movie could turn everything around, and with Doom, Wells also hoped to cross over to non-gamers as well. "You have to make a film that works as a film," he continues. "If it just works as an extension of the game, why wouldn't I just stay home and play the game?"