A Doctor Doom movie is in the works, but with the Disney and Fox merger, things could get complicated. Despite that, director Joe Russo would still love for the movie to come to light.
For any Fantastic Four fan out there right now, you might be asking for a simple thing: a good Fantastic Four movie with an even better Doctor Doom. The Fantastic Four movies from the 2000s weren’t necessarily terrible. But the whole world had to admit, 2015’s Fantastic Four was just a shame. And what’s worse was the injustice they did to Doctor Doom’s character. It’s time for that to change.
Luckily, at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Legion creator Noah Hawley announced he’d be working on a Doctor Doom film. And in June, Hawley revealed that the script was written. Unfortunately, he also said that the movie wouldn’t be filmed “in the near future” for two large reasons: his upcoming project, Pale Blue Dot, and the Fox-Disney merger.
With the future of Marvel movies looking unclear from the outside, not even an insider like Avengers: Endgame director Joe Russo could for sure say what to expect from the merger moving forward. Speaking to Business Insider, the director revealed that he’s all for Doctor Doom joining the MCU.
“I’d love to see Noah’s interpretation of that character,” Russo said in the interview. “Anything that Noah does.”
At the same time, Russo understood that not everything may work out the way he and other fans hope it could. He continued by adding: “Who knows what’s going to happen with everything with the Disney acquisition?”
While the Business Insider story says that Russo has talked about the Doctor Doom movie, supposedly to brother Anthony Russo, it doesn’t look like the directing duo can do much to save the film.
On one hand, it’s largely up to Fox and Disney executives to work out all the fine details about character acquisitions and talent contracts. Fox holds the rights to both the Fantastic Four and the X-Men universe. Yes, it’d be a fan’s dream for someone like Sophie Turner to appear as Jean Grey in the MCU, but would her contract allow it? There would probably be a lot of legal jargon thrown into making that decision, but there’s a possibility that it’d just be easier to start with new actors and new contracts.
The character acquisition part may not be as bad of a feat to pull since we’re dealing with intellectual property that will be passed down. In a nutshell, the less that’s attached to the Doctor Doom project, the better. Actors and other crew signed on could only mean jobs lost or extremely long contract negotiations. But at the same time, hopefully that means Hawley won’t be shaken off of the project during the transition.
If anything, he will have the legendary Joe Russo to vouch for him. It’s likely (when the Fox merger reaches its final stages) that the project will end up in the hands of Kevin Feige, since he’s at the helm of Marvel Studios. And then, with Russo’s recommendation, Hawley may be able to stay on the Doctor Doom project.
As Hawley mentioned, it could be a long while before the Doctor Doom movie sees the light of day. Marvel Studios’ slate of films is thoroughly booked for at least the next two or three years. And it will take something of a miracle to start to merge the two cinematic universes into one. Throw in the X-Men universe, and you’ve got a doozy on your hands. Still, this is nothing new to the comic book world, and we’re sure it can be pulled off.