Draft:Doctor Doom (film)

Doctor Doom is a potential American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it would be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film has been written by Noah Hawley.

After the failure of Fantastic Four (2015), 20th Century Fox began work on new "angles" to take the franchise. Hawley announced that he was developing a film about Doctor Doom in July 2017, and began writing a script early the next year. The first draft was completed a year later, when Hawley's focus moved to other projects. He continued to discuss the film after the acquisition of Fox by Disney.

Cast

 * Victor von Doom: The King of the Eastern European country Latveria.

Development
After the critical and commercial failure of the 2015 film Fantastic Four, 20th Century Fox began looking at "various angles" to take the franchise rather than just making another Fantastic Four film. In July 2017, Noah Hawley announced that he was developing a film about Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four's primary antagonist, for Fox. Though Hawley was just writing the script, he was interested in potentially directing the film as well. Different versions of Doom previously appeared in Fox's Fantastic Four films respectively portrayed by Julian McMahon and Toby Kebbell. In January 2018, Hawley said that he had almost completed the final script for the second season of his Marvel series Legion, and that the Doctor Doom script would be his main priority after that. The next month, Hawley's script was named as a particular focus for Fox in its planned Fantastic Four relaunch.

Hawley said in March that his personal focus was not to re-launch the Fantastic Four, and that he just wanted 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?" Hawley added that he was interested in having the film mix multiple genres rather than be a straightforward "superhero" film, similar to Legion. He particularly noted the potential political thriller aspect of the character, which he felt had been successfully used previously in Marvel's 2014 film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but cautioned his film would be different from that one. Additionally, Hawley acknowledged that the acquisition of Fox by Disney could potentially affect the project, but as of that time he was unsure how and had not discussed the issue with either studio. The first draft of the script was completed by the start of June 2018, though Hawley felt it needed more work and planned to continue writing after completing production on his film Lucy in the Sky (2019).

In March 2019, Hawley revealed that his script features Doom putting a dome over Latveria, the fictional European country that he rules, and later inviting a female journalist to "be his voice to the world". Hawley added that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige had approached him about the project ahead of Disney—Marvel Studios' parent company—taking over the rights to the character, but Hawley was unsure if this would lead to the project moving forward under Feige and Marvel Studios. Later that month, Disney officially acquired Fox and gained the film rights to several Marvel Comics characters for Marvel Studios, including Doctor Doom. The Marvel-based films that Fox had been developing were placed "on hold". In January 2020, Hawley said he had not been contacted by Marvel Studios regarding the project since the acquisition, and his focus had now moved to a new Star Trek film that he was planning, but he hoped his Doctor Doom film could fit into Marvel's plans and said that if they did ever contact him about it, he would be "in".