If I Ran the Zoo: Making a Good 'Doom' Movie

It can be done, believe me. Ever since I first played Doom, on my 100 mhz Gateway with no sound effects, I knew it could be done. After reading a couple early reviews of 'Doom,' it's clear that it missed out on its enormous potential. And I really believe there is potential here, starting with the fact that 'Doom' is the ultimate McGuffin for blowing everything up and killing lots and lots of monsters. It's a good time for a Doom movie, because the zombie resurgence is coming to a close, and 'Doom' would offer everything people like in a zombie movie (lots of shooting, hordes of monsters), only with more variety in the monsters, a more exotic location (Mars) and none of the 'drunk zombie' syndrome that happens at the end of zombie movies wherein our heroes simply start running past their pursuers. I'm pretty optimistic my game plan for a Doom movie would go over much better than what you could see in theaters now.

My reason for optimism is the ending that I've had in mind since about 1995. After you beat the first 'episode' of the game Doom, your character essentially enters Hell. To me, Hell has always been an underutilized locale for movies. There's really no right or wrong way to portray it, and if you have a guy with a chainsaw and shotgun in there blasting hooves and horns off demons, then it's all the more merrier. So here's my ending: after our hero dispenses a legion of demons and zombies on Mars, and is the only marine left, he finds the portal to Hell where all this crap has been emanating from. And what does he do? He grabs a few more guns, lights a cigarette and jumps in. The End.

To me that's the only way you can end this movie and a damn fine way if you ask me. So we have the ending, now let's work backwards, starting with the cast. The Rock is an excellent choice for the main character because he has a surplus of the credibility and camp needed to convince audiences that he can shoot his way through thousands of demons. The Rock is a good start, but we need a few people around him to make 'Doom' more appealing. We need a couple of stars who will make people say 'He's in it?' and the perfect fit for that phrase is Nick Lachey. Since he and Jessica have split up he's in the market for a career, and some fast cash, so he's in as the pretty-boy Marine who's a bit slow with the trigger and pays for it bigtime. The third tier star in 'Doom' (not a good title to own) will be Donny Wahlberg, who also needs work and will amiably fill the role of the God-fearing-explosives-expert-who-quotes-Genesis-as-he's-setting-a-bomb.

So there's our cast, now how about a story. If you don't know anything about the game of Doom, here's a refresher: guy all alone on Mars vs. zombies and demons, here's a chainsaw, good luck! This actually works in favor of the movie 'Doom' because there are no essential characters or plot points to include, which leads to my idea about the plot: very, very simple. Think 'Aliens' without any side story about Newt or exposition about what happened in the original. Most of the Marines will be killed early, followed by a Donny Wahlberg setting off a big bomb as he says 'Amen!' giving the survivors enough time to barricade the doors and listen to a few cheesy lines from The Rock. Demons pour in, they find bigger guns, a Zombie Marine attacks Nick Lachey, he hesitates to shoot him because they were childhood friends and loses his face as a result.

There will be a couple more scenes like that, including one where the mandatory Asian Marine saves The Rock's life, but his smile quickly turns to fright as he sees a huge monster creep up behind Asian Marine and eat him. The Rock somehow escapes and trips over The BFG 9000, which he uses to clear out a whole room of demons, setting up our soon-to-be-famous ending.

Would it work? I'm pretty sure it would be better than the current 'Doom' attempt. It would gain steam from word-of-mouth, especially with Lachey in it and eventually earn around $30 million before settling into semi-cult classic status on DVD. It may be a stretch, but 'Frank's Doom' would also gain notoriety for its running time of 68 minutes and unintentionally hilarious bits of dialogue from The Rock.