The Doom franchise has had some high peaks and mighty falls in its 27-year history. While Doom: Eternal was a critical and commercial success some iterations of the franchise have performed far worse. There have been attempts to create films of the series which resulted in an ill-fated film with Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban that failed to impress critics or fans of the franchise despite a handful of nods to the original games. The next film Doom: Anihaliation was released last year and the game studio behind the games, Bethesda, made a conscious effort to distance themselves from the title. Somewhat surprisingly, rumors have now surfaced of a Doom reboot.
The original Doom game had such an impact that the term first-person shooter was interchangeable with Doom-shooter. The journey of a marine fighting hellish creatures in space resonated with fans and made its way into gaming history. Yet the Doom games never had a firm focus on plot and as a result, adaptations of the series in more narrative-based formats have always struggled. Despite this, studios are now looking at another former wrestler to act as the leading role in a film.
The studio that owns the rights to Doom, Universal, is now looking to John Cena to do what Dwayne Johnson could not; lead a successful Doom film. It will be a difficult task to embody the Doom Slayer who is a blank canvas for players to embody. Despite the many evolutions in the Doom franchise, it will be tricky to please fans with a story from very little material. Nevertheless, there are increasingly successful film adaptations of video-games and it would be satisfying to see a film bring the energetic and gory gameplay to a visceral cinema experience.
While previous Doom films have struggled to get a reaction from fans, this does not mean that a different take on the franchise will not be successful. The recent Doom games have revitalized the series and renewed interest in the franchise, and if this continues there could be a hungry fan base for a film adaptation. Time will tell how far this production goes, and as many films have illustrated in the past, development hell can be easily found and hard to escape.
Doom: Eternal was undoubtedly one of the most anticipated games of 2020, and it will take some work to create this excitement for a film version of the game given the history of the franchise. Nevertheless, if the studio does pursue creating the film, they will likely have a good idea of how they want to attract fans and please the potential audience.
Source: We Got This Covered