How The Doctor Doom Movie Will Be Similar To Captain America

Doctor Doom comics

In addition to keeping busy as the showrunner of Fargo and Legion, Noah Hawley is working on his own contribution to the superhero movie landscape. Last year at San Diego Comic-Con, Hawley revealed that he's developing a Doctor Doom movie for 20th Century Fox. Victor von Doom has already appeared three Fantastic Four movies (four if you count the 1994 one that was never officially released), but this movie will allow the Marvel super villain to arguably shine properly for the first time. But this Doctor Doom movie is also just one of numerous superhero movies being delivered to the masses, which is why Hawley is looking to how Captain America: The Winter Soldier effectively mixed genres in order to stand out. Hawley explained:

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. 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?

While 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger did receive its fair share of positive reviews, its 2014 sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, was not only met with better reception, it still ranks as one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's standout entries. So for Noah Hawley to use this movie as a starting point for crafting his Doctor Doom story is a wise choice. The superhero movie genre has grown so much over the last two decades that mixing with other genres is a good way for a movie to distinguish itself from the competition. Hawley also seems to have a good grasp of what makes Doctor Doom such a complex character, so this movie may finally be just the project to do the character justice.

During his interview with Observer, Noah Hawley also mentioned that he's interested in exploring Victor von Doom's connection to Latveria. Hawley said:

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?

In the previous Fantastic Four movies, Doctor Doom served as more of a conventional super villain, desperate to destroy the Fantastic Four in retaliation for how they've wronged him. It's unclear if Marvel's First Family will be involved in this Doctor Doom movie, but having him rule Latveria like his comic book counterpart would be a good way to more closely adhere to the source material. I'm also hoping Noah Hawley's movie does a better job highlighting Victor's genius intellect, particularly with using crazy inventions to use against his foes rather than relying on superpowers he obtained naturally.

Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates about the Doctor Doom movie and anything concerning the Fantastic Four on film. In the meantime, you can look through our 2018 release schedule to learn what movies are coming out this year.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.