Will we ever see a Doctor Doom Movie ?

[Mauled]

The title says it all. Im not even bothered about not having the Fantastic 4 as I was never a fan of them anyway. But Doom, yeah I liked him.
Infinity War was basically a Thanos Movie in all about name. Joker was incredibly successful for DC so why not do a Movie for Marvels greatest Villain character. Hell you could even use the Fan4stick in a supporting role if need be . But let's get that Doom Movie. What's holding Marvel back ?

[XPac]

I think we'll get movies focusing on Doom.... but I'm skeptical we'd ever get a Dr. Doom movie.

Then again, I wouldn't have predicted we'd get a Loki TV show, so it's not impossibe.

[Iron Maiden]

The title says it all. Im not even bothered about not having the Fantastic 4 as I was never a fan of them anyway. But Doom, yeah I liked him.
Infinity War was basically a Thanos Movie in all about name. Joker was incredibly successful for DC so why not do a Movie for Marvels greatest Villain character. Hell you could even use the Fan4stick in a supporting role if need be . But let's get that Doom Movie. What's holding Marvel back ?

As much as I would like to see that, I doubt this will happen now. Noah Hawley had a script prepared for Fox and this was announced at ComicCon 2017. But then when Fox agreed to the Marvel/Disney's purchase of the film division, that project fell into limbo. Hawley has had some communication with Kevin Feige but there's not been much news on that since early 2019. I was really excited when he described the premise because some elements, like the female reporter looking for a story, are similar to Books of Doom

Noah Hawley had described the film as "a geopolitical thriller that would begin with Doctor Doom putting a dome over the fictional country he rules called Latveria. Doctor Doom would then invite a female journalist to be his voice to the world".

It seems like we get frequent "insider info" of Doom appearing in various Phase 4 movies in some small way. The latest "scoop" is that he will be mentioned in the end of credits scene in Black Widow. But nothing on screen. We may seen Lucia von Bardas instead. Again, this is all unconfirmed.

[Mauled]

I think we'll get movies focusing on Doom.... but I'm skeptical we'd ever get a Dr. Doom movie.

Then again, I wouldn't have predicted we'd get a Loki TV show, so it's not impossibe.

Loki really rests on the star and acting power of Tom Hiddleston imo. He did a Shakespeare movie version of Henry the 5th and he pulled it off brilliantly. He can definitely handle his own series

[Mauled]

As much as I would like to see that, I doubt this will happen now. Noah Hawley had a script prepared for Fox and this was announced at ComicCon 2017. But then when Fox agreed to the Marvel/Disney's purchase of the film division, that project fell into limbo. Hawley has had some communication with Kevin Feige but there's not been much news on that since early 2019. I was really excited when he described the premise because some elements, like the female reporter looking for a story, are similar to Books of Doom

Noah Hawley had described the film as "a geopolitical thriller that would begin with Doctor Doom putting a dome over the fictional country he rules called Latveria. Doctor Doom would then invite a female journalist to be his voice to the world".

It seems like we get frequent "insider info" of Doom appearing in various Phase 4 movies in some small way. The latest "scoop" is that he will be mentioned in the end of credits scene in Black Widow. But nothing on screen. We may seen Lucia von Bardas instead. Again, this is all unconfirmed.

Cheers for the Info. I think both Marvel and Disney would be missing a trick not doing a Doom Movie.
Audiences have changed since the old days. Shows like Breaking Bad/Sopranos with the Villain as the Main character have been around for awhile in TV and are highly regarded. but Infinity War (which is a better movie than Endgame imo) in which the Bad guy (a big purple person) manages to wipe out half the Universe really showed it can be pulled off in the Comic book movie world.

Also not using Doom or just keeping him with the 4 really wastes him too imo

[Revolutionary_Jack]

But let's get that Doom Movie. What's holding Marvel back ?

Three things:

1) Making a movie around Joker was a risk, but at the same time Joker has had many different successful live-action versions on TV and film (Batman'66, Batman'89, Dark Knight). He's a famous enough character among civilians, that you can justify taking that risk in putting money on a movie with him as protagonist. To the extent that any supervillain had a shot of getting their movie, Joker would be in the front of the line. In the case of Doctor Doom, you have a character who has never really crossed over in any big way before. He's well known and famous among superhero comics fans and Marvel fans, but ultimately movies are meant for the civilians who don't know any of that.

2) You need a leading man to play Doom. Look at the actors who have played Joker in live-action (Nicholson, Ledger, Leto, Phoenix). Four of those actors at the time of casting were Oscar winners or Oscar nominees (I know Leto sunk his reputation a bit when Suicide Squad came out but in the lead-up his casting was praised and highly anticipated) who had experience headlining their own movies. Part of the reason why Joker got to headline his own movie was that a long time before, WB set a tradition of casting major leading man actors as the bad guy (in the case of Heath Ledger, they cast an actor who was a potential choice for Bruce Wayne in the first movie, which further heightened the duality of Batman and Joker, and also helped sell Joker as Batman's greatest villain since they cast an actor of equal stature as the leading man in that role). To make a Doctor Doom movie, you need to cast a leading man actor who can carry a movie. To help make the case of Doctor Doom as Marvel's biggest villain you need an actor who has equal stature to RDJ and others...someone like DiCaprio or Adam Driver.

That leads us of course to

3) Doctor Doom is a character who spends all his screentime behind a face-covering mask. So whoever you cast in that role is going to be asked to play a character whose face (which is basically the essential tool for any actor) is covered for a significant stretch of the screen. This is not an uncommon problem in superhero movies (consider how often Spider-Man removes his mask in the movies as opposed to the comics before the movies) but in the case of Doom, he's scarred horribly and the mask covers that scarring so you can't really dodge this issue. This makes it harder than Joker (who you basically need to cover with white face paint and green hair but that still allows the actor full range of facial features to perform). You can get around it by doing a movie of Doom based on his origin (where he spends most of the first act with his face, and then the second acts until his rise to power behind the mask). Or you know if you adapt Secret Wars and the finale has Doom's face repaired. But in general you are going to have to ask an actor to carry a movie with a mask covering his face the whole way through.

Of the lot, I think 2) and 3) are the biggest hurdles to making a Doom movie. Marvel made a hit movie out of Guardians of the Galaxy so I don't think making a movie on a villain even one a little unfamiliar is a hard thing for them. So 1) is not a problem for them.

The biggest issue is the mask. There are some cases of actors doing incredible performances with the faces covered...like Edward Norton in Kingdom of Heaven (which has to be the reference since that was an emotional and dramatic and interior performance), you also have old fashioned monster movie performances like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein where you see an actor selling emotion under heavy make-up and covering, Gary Oldman's Mason Vergere in HANNIBAL (a bad movie overall) is another example of an actor under layers of makeup and scarred face doing a great performance. But these instances are usually supporting performances or villains. That applies also to Darth Vader who many people point to but Vader himself is not the protagonist of any of the individual movies he appears in. Lucas does manage to get emotion out of the body language and fight choreography (played by two different actors - David Prowse and Bob Anderson) and from the great VO by James Earl Jones, but with Vader the idea is that he's more machine than man, and that he's surpressing his humanity, whereas Victor is always Doom with or without mask and armor.

Because of the mask, it's going to be hard to attract the attention of a DiCaprio or a Driver. Not to mention those two will want a big payday out of a role like this.

[Mauled]

Three things:

1) Making a movie around Joker was a risk, but at the same time Joker has had many different successful live-action versions on TV and film (Batman'66, Batman'89, Dark Knight). He's a famous enough character among civilians, that you can justify taking that risk in putting money on a movie with him as protagonist. To the extent that any supervillain had a shot of getting their movie, Joker would be in the front of the line. In the case of Doctor Doom, you have a character who has never really crossed over in any big way before. He's well known and famous among superhero comics fans and Marvel fans, but ultimately movies are meant for the civilians who don't know any of that.

2) You need a leading man to play Doom. Look at the actors who have played Joker in live-action (Nicholson, Ledger, Leto, Phoenix). Four of those actors at the time of casting were Oscar winners or Oscar nominees (I know Leto sunk his reputation a bit when Suicide Squad came out but in the lead-up his casting was praised and highly anticipated) who had experience headlining their own movies. Part of the reason why Joker got to headline his own movie was that a long time before, WB set a tradition of casting major leading man actors as the bad guy (in the case of Heath Ledger, they cast an actor who was a potential choice for Bruce Wayne in the first movie, which further heightened the duality of Batman and Joker, and also helped sell Joker as Batman's greatest villain since they cast an actor of equal stature as the leading man in that role). To make a Doctor Doom movie, you need to cast a leading man actor who can carry a movie. To help make the case of Doctor Doom as Marvel's biggest villain you need an actor who has equal stature to RDJ and others...someone like DiCaprio or Adam Driver.

That leads us of course to

3) Doctor Doom is a character who spends all his screentime behind a face-covering mask. So whoever you cast in that role is going to be asked to play a character whose face (which is basically the essential tool for any actor) is covered for a significant stretch of the screen. This is not an uncommon problem in superhero movies (consider how often Spider-Man removes his mask in the movies as opposed to the comics before the movies) but in the case of Doom, he's scarred horribly and the mask covers that scarring so you can't really dodge this issue. This makes it harder than Joker (who you basically need to cover with white face paint and green hair but that still allows the actor full range of facial features to perform). You can get around it by doing a movie of Doom based on his origin (where he spends most of the first act with his face, and then the second acts until his rise to power behind the mask). Or you know if you adapt Secret Wars and the finale has Doom's face repaired. But in general you are going to have to ask an actor to carry a movie with a mask covering his face the whole way through.

Of the lot, I think 2) and 3) are the biggest hurdles to making a Doom movie. Marvel made a hit movie out of Guardians of the Galaxy so I don't think making a movie on a villain even one a little unfamiliar is a hard thing for them. So 1) is not a problem for them.

The biggest issue is the mask. There are some cases of actors doing incredible performances with the faces covered...like Edward Norton in Kingdom of Heaven (which has to be the reference since that was an emotional and dramatic and interior performance), you also have old fashioned monster movie performances like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein where you see an actor selling emotion under heavy make-up and covering, Gary Oldman's Mason Vergere in HANNIBAL (a bad movie overall) is another example of an actor under layers of makeup and scarred face doing a great performance. But these instances are usually supporting performances or villains. That applies also to Darth Vader who many people point to but Vader himself is not the protagonist of any of the individual movies he appears in. Lucas does manage to get emotion out of the body language and fight choreography (played by two different actors - David Prowse and Bob Anderson) and from the great VO by James Earl Jones, but with Vader the idea is that he's more machine than man, and that he's surpressing his humanity, whereas Victor is always Doom with or without mask and armor.

Because of the mask, it's going to be hard to attract the attention of a DiCaprio or a Driver. Not to mention those two will want a big payday out of a role like this.

Some fair points. Though I'd point out that Darth Vader is hugely popular and famous and he is a guy in a mask. Lucas (not Disneys rip offs) is meant to be the story of the Tragedy of Darth Vader and that's huge.
If you listen to JEJ Voice acting in RTJ "it is to late for me son" shows its doable to have a masked character with depth. Why not with the guy Vader was semi based on?

Amd let's look at Iron Man. He's a masked character with a literal suit made if iron and before his breakout movie he wasn't even that popular amongst comic fans, not compared to say Spider-Man or a Batman let alone ordinary movie viewers. Now everyone knows who Iron man is and he is popular. RDJ'S paychecks and Marvel/Disney willing to pay them can attest yo that.

Besides for an origin story, it'll be him without the mask for most of it so you can get that performance.

Its a personal preference but I think Tom Hardy rather than DiCaprio would make a better Doom. And before you mention Venom. If Chris Evans can do the Human Torch and Cap then TH can do Venom and Doom

[Zero Hunter]

Its a personal preference but I think Tom Hardy rather than DiCaprio would make a better Doom. And before you mention Venom. If Chris Evans can do the Human Torch and Cap then TH can do Venom and Doom

Doom is supposed to have been a handsome man before it all went bad, and Hardy is not that at all. He is really a pretty ugly guy when you look at him. Plus I could never buy Hardy as a scientific genius.

[Tofali]

The day we get a movie about the Son of Dathomir is the day i'll believe that a Doctor Doom movie is possible.

Doom is supposed to have been a handsome man before it all went bad, and Hardy is not that at all. He is really a pretty ugly guy when you look at him. Plus I could never buy Hardy as a scientific genius.

He is barely coherent in any movie i have seen him in. Venom was a great casting for Hardy

[Iron Maiden]

I'm not sold on any one actor just yet. As Revolutionary Jack points out Doom will mostly likely be in full costume when he doe finally appear in the MCU. IMO this could give us the same scenario as with Darth Vader and makes the voice a priority over physical appearance. Unless they use my favorite work around in doing some version of Byrne's Liddleville story where the actor will not be confined to full mask and armor for the entire film. Thomas Hardy is a bit short for the role, again IMO, but he did wear special footware as Bane to add to his height. His voice just hasn't left a huge impression on me....he doesn't have that cultured a tone to it for lack of a better term. Doom was born a peasant but he took pains to acquire the manners and airs of a man far about his original station in life. I keep hoping Marvel strikes gold again with a relatively unknown actor as they did with Tom Hiddleston's casting as Loki.

[Jabare]

Well, we got a joker movie so anything is possible.

At this point, I'd think Marvel would establish him more as a big bad in the MCU going forward. With Thanos gone only a few characters can really fill his shoes and Doctor Doom is certainly at the top of that list.

Making him a protagonist of his own movie seems kind of counterintuitive...but sure its possible. Marvel could do it if they wanted to and because its Disney it will probably do very well.

[comfydog]

Joker's movie is its own version of the character, and that's a thing, there's been countless of Jokers and people recognize the character instantly, it's ingrained in pop culture and it can be anything as long as it's a crazy man who laughs a lot and has clown make up and green hair.
Doctor Doom is a guy in a metal mask and the only people that know him are those that still remember those awful Fantastic Four movies, in which he wasn't even a good part of, you also run into the problem of not having much freedom with the character. Joker can be anything as long as he's crazy, a clown and bad. Doctor Doom can only be one thing.
So no, a Doctor Doom movie has more chances of it being a flop than it being a success.

[your_name_here]

If any Marvel deserves their own movie, it’s Doom. I sure hope so. Tease fans for the inevitable FF/Doom showdown as opposed to opening with it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Some fair points. Though I'd point out that Darth Vader is hugely popular and famous and he is a guy in a mask. Lucas (not Disneys rip offs) is meant to be the story of the Tragedy of Darth Vader and that's huge.

The series overall is the story of Vader from the PT to the OT but break it down to individual movies and Vader's not the protagonist of ANH, ESB, ROTJ. He doesn't have most screentime at all. The prequels did center on Vader but it featured Anakin, before he became evil and before he got scarred and had to put on the costume.

So that's not exactly a good example for what you need to center the movie on a guy in a costume and mask.

If you listen to JEJ Voice acting in RTJ "it is to late for me son" shows its doable to have a masked character with depth.

A single scene that's told to us from the perspective of Luke Skywalker, i.e. human and non-mask wearing, POV. That's not the same thing.

Try and understand, Darth Vader is just a puppet. I mean in actual terms (also character terms, he's a puppet of the Emperor, and a puppet of prophecy). Vader is an empty husk whose strings are pulled by sound designer Ben Burtt (who designed the Vader Breath sounds), James Earl Jones (who voiced him), David Prowse who wore the costume in dialogue scenes for his body language, Bob Anderson who played Vader in all fight scenes and stunt scenes (that duel against Obi-Wan in ANH, and Luke in ESB and ROTJ, that's Anderson), and of course above all the main puppet-master of George Lucas who created the character, designed the look, and his dramatic arc, and via editing and visual cues, was able to suggest and indicate characterization in him. Since we see Vader from the point of view of other characters, it's largely their reactions, and the ability of Hamill and Fisher and others to sell the fear of being in Vader's presence that made the character work.

With Doom you can sell him as a character by highlighting the reactions of other characters but that's not the same as putting us in his perspective and having him be the protagonist as in for instance, "Triumph and Torment" and "Emperor Doom".

Amd let's look at Iron Man. He's a masked character with a literal suit made if iron and before his breakout movie he wasn't even that popular amongst comic fans, not compared to say Spider-Man or a Batman let alone ordinary movie viewers. Now everyone knows who Iron man is and he is popular. RDJ'S paychecks and Marvel/Disney willing to pay them can attest yo that.

Most of the time, you see Tony Stark without costume and mask. That's not a good example. With Doom, you can't have him without the mask.

Its a personal preference but I think Tom Hardy rather than DiCaprio would make a better Doom.

Tom Hardy lacks the romanticism and elegance that Doom has. He's too hard-edged as an actor. Whereas DiCaprio can play that. Besides that Doom with his fully healed face actually resembles DiCaprio.

Victor_von_Doom_(Earth-616)_from_Marvel_Super_Heroes_Secret_Wars_Vol_1_10_0001.jpg
DiCaprio Inception.jpg

With Doom you need an actor who can give a full spectrum, you have to believe in him as a sympathetic and romantic kid, a handsome man with a capactiy for darkness, a great intelligence and ruthless edge, someone who can be over-the-top camp but also menacing and frightening. DiCaprio has that, he proved it in movies like Shutter Island, Wolf of Wall Street, Inception. DiCaprio has played heroes and villains, and characters who are in-between. He's also an actor who can sell a movie by himself, and if you want Marvel Universe to sell the idea and belief that Doom is the greatest Marvel villain, cast DiCaprio and audiences will immediately accept that. Besides that DiCaprio is part German and speaks German so he has an European quality to him.

The real cool thing would be if you cast DiCaprio as Doom, and Tobey Maguire as Reed (and also Kirsten Dunst as Susan). DiCaprio and Maguire are real life close friends and they have real chemistry together as in The Great Gatsby. Reed Richards is often framed in comics as Peter Parker's role model, so casting the original Peter Parker to play Reed would instantly sell him as the great genius who rivals Tony Stark, and Tom Holland can fanboy over Reed the way he did Tony (not to mention that RDJ and Tobey Maguire actually played a couple in the movie Wonder Boys).

[Mauled]

The day we get a movie about the Son of Dathomir is the day i'll believe that a Doctor Doom movie is possible.



He is barely coherent in any movie i have seen him in. Venom was a great casting for Hardy

Watch him in Bronson. For playing a semi insane guy whose kept himself in Jail, he's pretty coherent
https://youtu.be/paa9knyJKrs