Video Game Adaptations: A 'Doom' Sequel? Will 'Wolfenstein' Finally Move Forward?

There were a couple of headlines related to video game adaptations today, and if it's all the same to you, I'm going to condense them into one story. The reason for that is I can't believe one of them is actually moving ahead. You remember Doom, right? If you needed a refresher, the flick was actually on cable yesterday as I was trying to find some baseball to watch. But Doom is not a good movie. It briefly incorporated the first-person-shooter point of view toward the end, and that's about the only thing that stuck with me, having not been a Doom player. Before you say I couldn't possibly understand all the nuances of the game that movie got right, I don't care; I haven't read Mario Puzo's The Godfather, either. That movie's still pretty good. I mean, who has the time to become intimately familiar with every source material for every movie made? Can't happen. So toss the argument. In addition to not being much of a flick, Doom was a dismal box office failure, too, making less than half of its $70 million budget in the U.S. Why and how a sequel may be getting made just doesn't make a lot of sense. But as IGN reports, id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead says the company has learned some things from their maiden voyage and believes that the game Doom 4 may be best suited for the movie sequel. "We'll see what happens when we get further along in development of the game and there's more buzz and we share more about what the game will be about," says Hollenshead. "As the buzz meter starts to go up, that may kind of kick-start the guys over at Universal." I could understand if the first film just didn't get an audience and people were actually clamoring for a sequel, like Serenity, for instance (although I realize that's not a video game). I could understand it if, like the Resident Evil movies, they actually make a little bit of money at the end of the day even though they're not terribly good films. But to not make money and to be mediocre at best...and you want us to pay for another dose? On the flipside, there's Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Growing up in the 80s, Wolfenstein was one of the first great computer games. I remember it fondly. The title was re-launched in 2001, and it was just as much fun only it had much better graphics, obviously. We've been seeing Wolfenstein pop up in movie talks for at least three years, but part of the problem was assigning the screenplay to Roger Avary. He got arrested a earlier this year on suspicion of manslaughter and DUI. In the months before that, there was that writer's strike you might have heard about. The man of the hour, Todd Hollenshead, speaks again. "With the writer's strike it took so long to get underway and Roger...had a commitment that was in line before working the Wolfenstein stuff," explains Hollenshead. "But I've recently been in contact with Roger and he's actually working on the script right now." See, that's good news. It's a game with a great story, it can't help but be an action-packed movie when it finally gets here, and I think it works as a film probably better than it does as a game in a lot of ways. So while I can't bring myself to get really excited about Doom 2, I say bring on Castle Wolfenstein.

Comments

[Brandon]

When I played doom, it was about the creepy trip through to the end.

What the movie didn't do was bring the viewers into a different dark and demonic world that the video game captures well. The older games do it quite well, nothing like classic doom and wolfenstein. The newer doom I do not like at all.

I highly doubt the second one will be good but if they could just take you on a journey through a dark demonic world and do what the fellowship of the ring did for journey movies, it would be cool.

Oh wait.. wake up, good writers are not hired for these types of movies.

[Cranky]

What's with the new hollywood strategy of trying again? Think of all the great bombs out there in the last few years that audiences would surely love if only the studio had a second chance!

Let's see, after Hulk and Doom what else can we hope for?

How about White Noise with Michael Keaton? Can we get that remade too? Deathproof? Snakes on a Plane? Soldier?

The possibilities are endless!

[Gee]

The problem with the Doom movie was that it did not stick to the original storyline of the game. This was due to a marketing strategy, that suspected that the film would fail if it had a "religious" storyline. How ironic, it failed anyway!

What the film makers don't seem to realise with making movies out of games, is that they need to stick to the storylines of the game in order to guarantee the appeal to the already existing fan base. If the fan base shoot it down, then the film will have no chance.

The film "Hitman" is the one that I am unsure of, not having played the games properly or getting into the story, although I did enjoy the film itself. Timothy Olyphant was surprisingly fantastic in the role, especially incorporating the swagger of the lead.

In recent times they have finally managed to produce a good film based on the game "Max Payne". I played and enjoyed the Max Payne games and I was presently surprised to see the movie using as many elements of the game as it could, although it still left a few out (maybe these will appear in an extended version to do the usual DVD sales boosting technique).

If they can make Doom 2 as good as they did Max Payne, then I'm all for it.

[Jack Torrance]

all work and no play make Jack a dull boy