There will be many casualty films when the smoke clears on the Disney/ Fox Merger. A lot of films already received pink slips. Noah Hawley (Legion) holds out hope that his Doctor Doom film could see the light of day with Marvel Studios.
By looking at the sheer number of films in the chute for Fox, it is apparent that the studio was throwing everything at the wall in the final few years before the buyout was final. A number of these films had fans excited, but the reality is that Fox couldn’t meet the high expectations for most of these films.
If you doubt this, just look at Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four and Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix. A villain-centric film is tricky. Venom only worked because the character is more anti-hero rather than full-on villain.
Warner Brothers Joker looks promising, but the verdict is still out on whether it will make the cut. Doctor Doom is a very important character to Marvel. He may serve the narrative better as an overarching villain, like the studio did with Thanos, rather than trying to tell his whole story in one film.
Last week, Marvel Studios axed most of the rest of the Fox slate, but it’s unknown whether Doctor Doom is dead. Hawley tells Deadline that he is unaware of Marvel’s intentions with his script:
“I mean, where it stands is now that the movie is done and Legion is done and I’ve taken a little time off because someone told me there was this word ‘vacation,’ which means you don’t work, which sounded really interesting to me.”
“But you know, I need to circle back to them and announce that I would love to make it and figure out if that’s something that is possible.
Whether or not they already have a plan in place for what to do with those characters. Or whether they’re open to my kind of vision for what to do with those characters. But it’s sort of on me right now to go push them. Which I will do as soon as I come up for air.”
Hawley isn’t going to wait around for Marvel. He currently has a full schedule, and is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
