These days, a damning phrase tends to shadow Hollywood’s superhero series. The prolific success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made many question whether audiences are getting superhero fatigue, but the box office doesn’t back the claim up. Black Panther has racked up more than $1 billion since its February debut, and other Marvel characters hopes their solo outings can do the same.
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So, when Doctor Doom gets his own standalone, Noah Hawley says he will spice the villain-centric movie up.
Recently, the director sat down with Observer to talk about his tenure with Marvel. The man is the brainchild behind Legion, Fox’s trippy live-action X-Men series. Last year, Hawley told fans he was also working on a feature starring Doctor Doom, and the man revealed how the film will feature a mix of genres.
“As with Legion, my thought was that the [superhero] genre has a certain kind of movie covered, but what else can the genre do,” Hawley explained. “What’s interesting to me about Doom’s character is he’s the king of an Eastern European country and is there a version of this that is more of a political thriller that mixes genre?”
Instead of all-out action and Transformer-esque explosions, Doctor Doom will delight in its quiet thrills. Hawley says the MCU nailed that kind of tone when Captain America: Civil War debuted, and the creator said he wants his X-Men standalone to feature mixed genres as well.
“It’s something that [Captain America] Winter Soldier did really well, which was kind of make a Cold War thriller movie out of a superhero movie. This is different than that, but it does have this idea of, and I don’t want to say too much about it, but it is a mixture of genres,” Hawley said.
“The mandate is not to re-launch the Fantastic Four franchise as much as it is to take this fascinating and under-served character and really build a movie about him where we ask the question: Is he a hero? Is he a villain? What does he really want?”
Of course, fans are excited to hear Hawley still has plans to tackle the standalone. The film’s production was put into question after news broke about Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox. The merger would give Marvel Studios access to Doctor Doom along with the entire Fantastic Four, but current reports indicate Fox’s line-up of films will not change drastically once the deal goes through. As far as Hawley knows, Doctor Doom is chugging right along since he hasn’t been told otherwise.
“I haven’t had a single conversation yet about Doom in the context of the merger,” the man told Collider. “On some level, we’re still looking at a period of time – probably a year, at the least – for this whole thing to go through. Who knows, corporately, what conversations will be had, but certainly, until it goes through, it’s not a legal thing. I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for the phone to ring to see if anyone is gonna have an opinion. Otherwise, it’s just business as usual for me.”
Do you think Doctor Doom will actually make it to theaters? Should it? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!
