New ‘Doom’ movie in production

Image: Bethesda Softworks via AFP Relaxnews

Rock singer and actress Nina Bergman has revealed that Universal Pictures is producing a new adaptation of influential video game “Doom.”

Released in 1993, “Doom” helped establish the first-person shooter genre with its blend of cutting-edge graphical techniques, a searing heavy metal soundtrack and boundary-pushing action.

Players took control of a soldier unleashed upon a Martian research facility swarming with the legions of Hell.

Three core games in and the franchise rebooted itself in 2016 with another critically acclaimed “Doom”, successfully recapturing the speed, weight and viscera of the original.

By that time, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a fixture in the billion dollar “Fast and Furious” franchise, having earlier used a 2008 adaptation of “Doom” to help establish his big-screen credentials.

And as Johnson was propelling his second video game adaptation, “Rampage”, north of $280 million at the worldwide box office, rock star Nina Bergman revealed her involvement in a second movie adaptation of the “Doom” franchise.

“Wow I’m doing the next ‘Doom’ movie with Universal Pictures!” she wrote in an April 18 Twitter post.

Production will take place in Bulgaria, she detailed; the director appears to be Tony Giglio, a writer on the “Death Race” franchise and a second unit director on “Resident Evil: Afterlife”, after a subsequent tweet referred to his now-deleted account.

Even if Bergman had inadvertently announced the film ahead of schedule, Universal confirmed the production’s status in an April 20 follow-up with Variety, clarifying that the project is going through its Universal 1440 Entertainment division.

That the new “Doom” should be overseen by 1440 implies that it will be a straight to video affair, and could be shopped to online video-on-demand services as a result.

Nina Bergman’s acting profile is not yet as high as Dwayne Johnson’s was when he appeared in the 2008 “Doom”, having already logged “The Mummy Returns”, “The Scorpion King”, “Walking Tall” and “Be Cool”, after spending over 10 years as a charismatic wrestler for the WWF and WWE sports entertainment group. JB

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