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| Rock Went Dark For Doom Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who stars in the upcoming video-game adaptation Doom, told SCI FI Wire that he liked the fact that the film doesn't hold back for the sake of a less restrictive rating. "I was wanting to do a rated-R movie that was unapologetic, and that's what you find with Doom, unlike the other video-game adaptations," Johnson said in an interview on the set in Prague last January. "We're not trying to be PG-13, and we're not making any apologies for what we are, which was what the original Doom did." As a result, the film is more terrifying, which was Johnson's hope from the beginning. "What really sealed the deal for me was when I finally talked to Andre Bartkowiak, the director," Johnson said. "I said, 'We have this liberty that we can scare people.' I said, 'What're your feelings on that?' You know, I wanted to scare the s--t out of people. And he said, 'Well, we're not going to scare the s--t out of people.' There's this long pause. [I'm thinking], 'Oh God. I just signed a contract.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'We're going to f--king terrify them.' I was like, 'Oh great.' To hear that passion, that was great too." Johnson was originally considered for the role of the heroic John Grimm, which eventually went to Karl Urban, but after reading the script he convinced the producers that he'd be better as Sarge, a much darker character. "I think I can relate more to Sarge," he said. "I love Sarge. [He's] a guy who's just steadfast, and he believes what he believes in at all costs. And he is that passionate about the corps. ... He is unforgiving, I will give you that. At times he is a little dark. I don't know if he's so much disturbed. That wasn't my interpretation of him, certainly not what we put on screen." Doom opens Oct. 21. |
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| Doom Shot In First Person Karl Urban, who plays space marine John Grimm in the upcoming adaptation of the video game Doom, told SCI FI Wire that part of the film will mimic the game's first-person-shooter style from his character's point of view. "There's a sequence sort of near the end of the film, where essentially the audience becomes John Grimm and goes around slaughtering all these creatures, mutants," Urban said in an interview on the set in Prague last January. "I've seen an animatic of it and it’s just thrilling. I'm pretty sure that it’s going to keep the audience in their seats." Urban said that he was aware of the high expectations of the game's legions of fans, but he left those concerns to the director and producers. "The game is a starting point for this film," he said. "It was an inspiration. And we have incorporated a hell of a lot of elements from this game into the film, but at the end of the day, this is a screen adaptation of the film. You know, we've done, I think, our very best to honor what the gamers are into and what has been created, and hopefully add to it." The film version will feature many of the weapons found in the game. To learn how to use them, Urban and his co-stars trained with a military specialist prior to shooting. The experience turned out to be one of his favorite aspects of the filmmaking process. "I love firing weapons," he said. "I love it. You know, I'm having a blast on this film, really. When you walk on sets and you see these moody corridors and they give you this mess of assault rifles to play with, I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. I've got my own 3-D version of Doom and I get to play it every day. It's sort of cool." Doom, also starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Rosamund Pike, opens Oct. 21. It is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com. |
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| Quake Following Doom To Film Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, told SCI FI Wire that a movie based on their Quake series was discussed long before a Doom film was in the works. As the Doom movie was bounced around between Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures, the game creators began pursuing an idea to make Quake into a film as well. "There has been talk about a Quake movie," Hollenshead said in an interview. "We would be interested in pursuing that. We had a good experience with Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] and John [Wells, the producers] and the cast [Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Rosmund Pike and others], as well as Universal." The trick with turning the Quake games into a film is that the games include very different environments. "The challenge for Quake is what to draw from for the movie," Hollenshead said. "Quake 2 and 3 are very different, and Quake 4 is kind of a prequel to 2. So for a movie, we will probably draw from the Quake 2 and Quake 4 universe—an alien race from another planet that has attacked the Earth. That sort of thing." Will it matter if the Doom film does well or not? "It won't make much difference to us, we see everything independently," Hollenshead said. "But in the ranks of Hollywood, if they see the Doom movie as successful, it will raise the interest level and they would want other game movies and come to us." Doom opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com |
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| No Guns For Doom Girl Rosamund Pike, who plays Dr. Samantha Grimm in Doom, told SCI FI Wire that her character never touches a gun in the film, on purpose. "She's dressed in white and she doesn't shoot a gun," Pike said in an interview. "I guess it's to prove that she can get through all the carnage without being armed." The movie co-stars Karl Urban as Samantha's brother, John, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Sarge. Pike said she's a bit disappointed that she doesn't get to do some of the high-action shooting and stunts that her counterparts do in the video-game-turned-movie. "I was all prepared for it after being a Bond girl," said Pike, who played Miranda Frost in Die Another Day. "The stunt coordinator gave me an extra gun and I was practicing how to fall down, roll over and come up firing. I got really good at it, but I didn't get the chance to use my skills." The actress said she didn't know about the game Doom and still has never watched it being played. She said she was concerned about the violent nature of the movie at first, but liked the idea that director Andrze Bartowiak said they weren't going to scale back the violence. "I thought for a long time about what I am saying about being in it," Pike said. "I wondered if it showed that I support violence, but it's so unreal, the explosions and the fire. It's more about the action. I'm against people thinking that it's real. The violence is such a fantasy." At one point, Sam's brother hands her something in the film that looks like a little gun, but it's not. "He gives me a radio to help me. That's it, a radio!" she said. When and if there's a Doom sequel :fear: , Pike said she hopes to play the character again. "Maybe then she will become a bionic woman of sorts and they'll give her a gun," she said. "Maybe she'll come back and be a little less uptight." Doom opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com. |
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| Doom Stars Signed For More Karl Urban and Rosamund Pike, who play the brother-and-sister monster-hunting team of John and Samantha Grimm in the upcoming SF movie Doom, are signed for sequels, though producer John Wells said that no such sequel is yet in the works. "It would be nice if there was a sequel, but we have nothing planned," Wells said in an interview. But, he added, "we certainly did sit in Prague [where the movie was shot] a few times and talk about the possibility of it." The film's other star, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, told SCI FI Wire that he may be able to do a sequel. "We've talked about it, and it's possible [I could come back]," Johnson said. Wells added: "We had a blast w**king with Dwayne. We would love to do another picture with him, and if he wanted to do the next Doom, I'm sure we could figure it out." Pike said that she would love to reprise her role as a savvy scientist, but added that next time she would like to have a gun. Her character learns how to escape rampaging demons by using her smarts rather than her shooting ability. "I'd like her to come back and be a bit more tough," Pike said. The sequel idea won't be seriously discussed until after the video-game-inspired film opens, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said in a separate interview. "You can't start thinking about a sequel before a picture even opens, but that's why we ended on a surprise," he said. "We went with the best ending, and we know the audience is very sophisticated." Doom opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, which is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. |