[news]
[reviews]
[features]
THE VOICE OF DOOMDoom, the movie, hits the world in October. Executive producer John Wells tells Slasherama all about demons, CGI and the blessed 'R' rating...
John Wells: "A lot of them have really sucked." You took the words right out of my mouth! For every Tomb Raider, there's a House Of The Dead or an Alone In The Dark. Have you felt the weight of scepticism while making Doom? John: "Sure. I think it's well-deserved scepticism, because there have been a lot of video game pictures that none of us really wanted to go see. Particularly with this kind of title, which so many people remember fondly as a game, the danger is that you disappoint a lot of people. That's why we spent a lot of time making sure that the script was really good and brought in a lot of financial support from Universal, so it wasn't done on the cheap. We've got a lot of great visual material on the screen and a terrific cast." So you're confident that Doom will win a lot of sceptics over? John: "I believe so. A lot of similar pictures have been done on the cheap, which sci-fi fantasy horror doesn't lend itself to! We got the support from Universal that we needed, and were able to get Dwayne - The Rock - and Karl Urban to act, as well as Andrzej Barlkowlak to direct. We tried to do it right." 
Surfing around earlier, I saw at least one site dedicated to how much the movie will supposedly suck.
John (laughing): "That's the great thing about the internet, isn't it? The response so far has been very good. We're feeling good about that, but we've also been careful not to over-respond to anything anybody has to say." Did you run test-screenings, then? John: "There were a lot of test screenings. There has also been a lot of early misinformation floating around on the internet about the picture. We made a conscious choice to wait until we actually had something to show people. Now that the trailer's shown up, and people at Comic-Con saw the first couple of minutes, I think we're starting to change people's minds." What's been the biggest misconception about the movie? John "I saw someone saying it wasn't set on Mars. I saw people saying that there weren't any demons... (laughs). But that's okay - at least people are talking about the movie. Your major concern with this kind of movie is the Friday night crowd - people who might not have even played the game. When they come out of that and go home and get on the internet, you want them to tell others that they had a really great time." 
The trailers have an Aliens vibe about them...
John: "Well, Alien and Aliens are two extraordinary benchmark films. If we've got anywhere close to that, we'll be happy." The movie features some first-person shots, to recreate the feel of the game. Can you tell us a little about that technique? John: "Once you get deeper into the film, that technique is very present. We did a lot of experimenting with how long we could stay in that first-person. There's a big difference between watching Doom on a 16 or 18-inch television right in front of you and watching it on a 20-metre-wide cinema screen. We fooled around with it, but we also felt that Doom without that would be a miscarriage of justice! We had to have some of it, because the game introduced that style in the first place." It's good that you've measured that first-person technique: if it was used too much, you could end up feeling like you're watching someone else play Doom... John: "Yeah! An objective camera is very disorienting." How many people on the cast and crew were fans of the game? John: "All of them. I don't think anybody didn't know the game. So we were all very concerned that we make sure that it was exactly the kind of experience that we remembered so fondly from the game: turning the lights off at midnight, cranking it up and scaring the hell out of yourself!" Are the film's creatures based more on the original games or on Doom 3? John: "A little of both. We just felt that it was important to have some of the classic creatures and some Doom 3 stuff. There are some things, though, that you can do on a video game but are almost impossible to recreate with CGI. There was stuff in the first script that we couldn't figure out how to do. You have to get stuff to hold up quality-wise, when projected on a big screen." So what kind of stuff did you rule out - the floating Cacodaemons? John: "Yeah, they were really hard to get to look right. We tried!" Bless you for trying, sir. How about the weapons: will we be seeing the BFG, for instance? John: "Oh, you've gotta see the BFG (laughs)." 
What's the balance of CGI and prosthetics in the movie?
John: "There's a great deal of CGI, but we tried to use it to balance out what we were doing otherwise - with the exception of one large sequence, which is part of the first-person stuff. We felt that part of the visceral nature of the game is that you're in these hallways, this terrifying place in the dark - and that was best done with a camera, rather than creating a computer-generated environment. There's a lot of Stan Winston's Creature Shop in it - we didn't wanna rely on the CGI. Those effects still haven't quite got to the level where you fully believe it - certainly not for long periods of time. So the balance in this picture is pretty good: there's a lot of Stan's work - some of which was worked on for five months - which is then enhanced with CGI. So we're using CGI, but there was generally something there to begin with. I think that a few years ago, we were overly hopeful about how good CGI would be and we made some stuff that didn't look quite right. If you rely too much on CGI it can look cheesy: it doens't quite work. It'll get there, but it's not there yet." Horror fans have breathed a sigh of relief at the movie's US 'R' rating... John: "Yeah, I don't think it was possible to do a PG-13 version - and that's been the mistake made by a couple of other computer game movies." It's very refreshing. Many people expected a studio like Universal to go for the widest possible demographic. John: "Y'know, there were a lot of studios that didn't want to do it. But we made a conscious decision that we'd prefer not to make it any other way." Good for you, sir! If this movie goes well, can you smell a franchise? John: "Well, we certainly have some ideas for the next one, if there is gonna be one. We'll have to wait and see: the audience will have to tell us..." Doom will be released in the US on October 21, 2005 and in the UK on October 28. [Discuss Doom on Message Board] [Read Our Review of Doom] [See Doom trailer in Media] [Features Menu] [Back To Top] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present |