Doom – Junket Interviews, Pt 5

Q: Could you explain a little bit, what was your task in this production?

Todd Hollenshead: Well I was originally supposed to be the lead actor in it but ah but then the Rock shoved me out of the role. No, just kidding. [laughing] Ah he's bigger than I am so I figured I didn't want to get the hell beat out of me. ID of course, created Doom the video game and the franchise and its something that we own so our role really went from the ah all the way from sort of striking the business deal to get the movie made to ultimately sort of being kind of I guess the keeper of the creative integrity of what the brand is like. We consulted on really almost every aspect of the movie in some, you know in some way, from selection of the writer, to consultation and input on the script to who was selected as the lead actors in the film.

Our art department from Doom Three the video game, supplied extensive assets to the effects people at Sam Winston studio, and to the set crew. I don't know how familiar you guys are with the video game, but if you've spent a lot of time playing Doom Three, when you see the movie it and for me the movie was filmed in Prague when I first set foot on the set, Ned sort of said "oh here ya go, we're not shooting here right this second" but it was sort of my first exposure to what they had created from the set, it's a very set driven movie.

It was a surreal experience because we've been working on this game for the past four years of my life and spent hours and hours playing through it and so for like the first time, when I stepped first foot on the set, it was sort of like stepping out of Prague circa fall 2004, and into the UAC base an Mars in 2145. I was just sort of blown away. They had the set down even to really, the smallest nuance, and so we knew immediately that they really wanted to sort of be true to what the visual experience was in the game. In the movie, characters like the demon in the movie the Hell Knight I think he's referred to in the script as The Baron, and um the Pinkie demon, were based on and were very true to those characters in Doom Three the game. So us sending the source art for all of those characters to John Farrad  and the Stan Winston guys, and then going in and saying hey here are our concepts for the characters, and you know your literally looking at two sides of the same coin almost. With the pinkie demon in the game the whole front is basically the same and the only thing that changed is because the way the story works in the movie is that he's got a wheelchair for a back end as opposed to sort of mechanical legs. The Hell Knight is cool in video games very cool in the movie too so...

Q: Why did you decide to take out the hellcart or the supernatural part and just to stay with the genetic mechanics?

Todd Hollenshead: Well for video games in kind of the doom universe we've been very blatant about it. I think that comes about because the game idea came from John Carmike whose a programmer. Programmers tend to see things in binary code, ones and zeroes, its either black or white, and so the subtlety of some of the questions on a more philosophical level. If you want to think about some of the questions the movie is asking you to think about. We didn't really think that was very important on the video game side. We were like, our game is "you kill em." It's less of a question of "What is hell where does it come from?" Are there demons within us? Those sorts of things that are more explored in the movie. In the game hell is like a literal place, it's just like oh well here's some stuff we can do to screw with peoples minds and you know, be scary. In the movie it's more of a figurative, oh this base is hell, that sort of dialogue is kind of where that influence comes in into the movie so its just a different way of conveying the same thing although we're definitely not averse to beating people over the head with it.

Q: When you play the game, there are signs, in some places they appear. Actually, in the movie, there's this guy who's very religious, and he makes a cross, and stuff like that; so we are expecting something to happen.

Todd Hollenshead: I think that the movie tries to sort of deal with it in a little more subtle fashion, I mean for us, we're not a company who deals in subtleties. All of our games are liked by a lot of people. We have our critics as well, in terms of what sort of content we put into our games, but we've never been very apologetic about that. All we said is that its for grown-ups, you know, mature people who want to play games. I believe all demons are bad; just kill them. I don't really have a lot of moral relativism about that sort of thing.

Q: You said that you guys own the rights to Doom, and is Doom Three um...

Todd Hollenshead: Yeah, we created Doom, and Doom Two, and all the Doom universe.

Q: What about the movie, is the movie related to Doom Three, or has elements of other video games or...

Todd Hollenshead: Well it's more tied to Doom Three, but it turns out the story [the original Doom, and Doom Two] was just a premise for what you did in the game. I basically said "There's a paragraph in the front of the manual", and then you started playing the game, and boom you went all the way through it. There wasn't dialogue, there weren't like, characters that you met, there was no RRTS, or any thing like that. There's no RRTS in Doom Three the game.

Q: RRTS?

Todd Hollenshead: Yeah, the Rapid Response Technical Squad, or... I can't remember exactly what the acronym stands for, but it's what all the members of the special forces team are that go occupy the facility in Mars. Its certainly more related to Doom Three, and in some ways its almost sort of coincidental in nature like that. Because we were kind of an independent development of what we were doing with the story, and the video game, with what was going on with the script. One of the big similarities between Doom Three, in terms of the story and the video game, is that Sarge in the game, is a person who is sort of your C.O. You believe he is helping you up until like, almost the very end of the game. Not like the final scene in the movie where you ultimately have to kill him to be successful and finish the game. So this sort of turn that happens is reminiscent of what goes on in the game, of course visually I think, they're very much tied to one another, even to the point that Karl Urban resembles very much the character that you play in Doom Three.

Q: Are you going to do another game, Doom Four?

Todd Hollenshead: Good question. We haven't really tried to tie the games at all with the movie, for example, Doom Three on the PC, came out in August of last year, and came out for the X Box this past spring. We do have a couple of things that we're doing that sort of timing wise, are into the time with the movie. Resurrection of evil, which is kind of like the extension of Doom Three the video game, coming out on the X Box next week here in the US. John Carmack has made has kind of an affinity for cell phone graphics, and we have Doom RPG, which is, you know, one finger play on your cell phone game, scheduled to be released next week as well. Doom Four is probably years down the road. It's not anything that we're into development on now.

I don't really see the video game side. The interactive side is something that sort of goes on its own path. It doesn't need a movie to be successful. We're very hopeful that the movie will be well received by everyone, and have the opportunity to expand to people who are familiar with Doom, and are interested in playing games, and being entertained in the Doom universe. The movie isn't the only thing that we've done that's not just interactive video games. There's a Doom board game, and there's like a Doom comic book. The're making a Doom coffee table book, and all these sorts of things that are related of the video game because its been so popular. The franchise has been popular in its own right.

Q: How many millions of units have you sold?

Todd Hollenshead: Oh we were just asked that question and that's the one I don't know the answer to. What did he say, that its in the press material? In terms of yeah, it says millions, I mean that Doom Three has sold. We tend to look at what's next and not what's in the past, but Doom Three has sold Two million units world wide between the PC and the X Box. The rest of the franchise is multiple millions as well, and that doesn't really properly describe how many people have played the game. The original Doom was released to be a shareware, and basically, Doom sort of popularized the whole first person shooter genre'.

Games like Halo and Half-life two, unreal and Duke Nukem, are all modeled after the way Doom works. I mean, even down to like what keys you press to do things within the games. That was experienced by well, I'll just say that the internet rumor is upwards of twenty-million people downloaded the shareware worldwide. There would be no way to verify that number because we just said " go have it, and freely give it to whoever you want to, and trade it, and all those sorts of things" so...

Q: So you offer a great deal.

Todd Hollenshead: Not me personally, but my company.

Q: So what do you think? Why has it become so popular?

Todd Hollenshead: There are a few factors I think; one is that before Doom, people experienced video games sort of pulled away from the character that you played in the game. In other words, you had a little guy that was runnin' across the screen, like you know, pac-man or whatever. Doom was one of the first games, and sort of came upon the heels of another game, that we had created, which sort of established the whole first person shooter genre. It was Wolfenstein 3D. Doom came on the heels of that, and for most people, it was the first time they had ever played a video game where you actually saw thru the eyes of the character. The level of empathy that you have for what goes on in the game is relay unparalleled in any other type, or genre of games. In first person games, you see thru the eyes, you know, the camera in the game is in your head. There's no other genre of video games where when you play, you're like, watching people dodging in their chair, where rockets or bad guys come at them.

I also think that video games in the early nineties were very much dominated by the consoles. The console companies were Sega, and Nintendo and the Japanese really had an aversion to violent, especially viscerally violent, content in video games. Part of it was its irreverence in terms of what people were used to seeing in video games. It was Zeldar, or Mario, and the worst thing you had to worry about was a big ape throwing, you know, barrels down at you, or whatever, and you're saving the damsel in distress. Doom, here you are, you're killing demons straight out of hell. People were like, I've never seen this type of game, in terms of how you viewed the game, how you played it. It was very much different from the type of experience they had had in terms of the subject matter as well. From a technical standpoint, in a graphical standpoint, it was relay very far ahead of everything else that was there. So people liked Doom Three I think that even casual observers could go by and look at the game and go, "Oh wow, I didn't know that this was really different from every thing else".

Q: How soon was doing a film talked about in your company?

Todd Hollenshead: There was original interest in doing a movie, and in fact there were options for a movie back in the mid-nineties. I started at ID as CEO of the company back in nineteen ninety-six. We were running on the expiration of the first time the rights for a movie had been optioned. We were working on the Quake properties, so Quake, and Quake Two, and Quake Three, were basically the games we were working on at the company from ninety-five up to two-thousand. I think that maybe Hollywood felt like oh well, Doom isn't cool any more. Now its Quake, or that its something else. ID isn't working on Doom, so it's something that's old and not relevant anymore. When we started working on Doom Three, and especially when we had such an enormously enthusiastic reception to the game. We first unveiled it to the public in two thousand and two at E3 here in LA, and the game won like, five game of the show awards. More awards than any game had ever won, and is still more awards than any game has ever won at the E3 show. It sort of rekindled the enthusiasm for it.

Also because of the nature of the visuals (that) were in the game, I think, made it much easier for people in Hollywood that are making the decisions about the game. You know, what properties they want to bring to the screen, it was much easier for then to see the movie and the property. In ninety-three / ninety-four the games looked great for their time, but when you start talking about what those characters would look like in a movie, you're having to take a huge stretch. They were sprites you know, totally flat, almost cartoonish by today's graphical standards. Whereas in Doom Three, with the high polygon models that literally look, on a real time rendered basis, like something you would see in a pre-rendered CG movie. There you could sit down people in the theater at CAA and say, you know, "Here's our Doom Three presentation" and in fifteen minutes they could get the feel for exactly, like, "Oh I see, we could do it like this" or decide to take more of an interest in it or what have you. Once we got going with that momentum, and rekindled that enthusiasm, then it was about putting together a project that was going to be appealing to a studio to fund.

Q: What would you say to those who claim that Hollywood has lost the edge in creativity by doing precisely what, you know, adapting sequels, video games? How will you answer to those (people)?

Todd Hollenshead: I think that Doom on the silver screen, you know, on the big screen, I guess silver screen is sort of an old, antiquated term now, but is something that is viewed as a creative exercise in its own right. There is always going to be the need to sort of "formula" films. There's need to "formula" games, there's a need to "formula" romance novels or what-have-you. I think that whenever you create a medium, there are going to be people that are looking out for the commercial aspect of it, as opposed to the creative aspect of it, but I think that everybody wants to ... When your in a creative medium, what you really want to be able to do, is to do stuff that is not only successful creatively, but is also successful commercially and that's what we've been able to do.

At ID we've remained independent so we don't have pressures like "Oh you have to have the game done by this" because you have shareholders who need to have the earnings. You know to be that, and its kind of the same approach that we took when we work on the movie, which is well we're not going to try to pigeonhole into "we gotta have it done by this day" or "we need to have the movie done to be at the same time with the game", and just sort of exploited it that way, but more to make it a creative process. That it's going to be a movie that is true to the spirit you know, from an atmosphere of visceral and no-apologies violent roots that the game in many ways changed the way the video game industry approached games. It wasn't just Doom, there was obviously other games that were violent and irreverent as well. Mortal Kombat is another one, sort of mentioned in those same terms you know, Doom and Mortal Kombat came out at about the same time, and were you know, on the US congress list of most hated video games. But Mortal Kombat made it a movie first. I like Mortal Kombat the movie but I think the Doom the movie is far superior to that.

Q: Can you compare the Doom movie with some other video game horror movies that have come out like Resident Evil, and like you said, Mortal Kombat?

Todd Hollenshead: Well I haven't seen Resident Evil, one of my colleagues who has, I think, said, (I mean it would be difficult for me to say since I haven't seen it.) but my understanding is sort of by reputation is that the Resident Evil movie was a good, enjoyable movie. The two video game movies that I like the most, were Mortal Kombat, I actually own the DVD because I was a fan of the game, and I thought the movie was pretty cool too. I thought the first Tomb Raider movie was pretty good, actually really good. The second one was a bit of a disappointment, but I think that as we have been moving forward, there still have been some kind of notorious misses on the movie side of the video games.

The Mario Brothers movies that were really poor, and were poor examples of Hollywood trying to work on video games. And that then inspired the video games saying "We're going to make our own movie." and then doing something like Wing Commander which was equally abysmal. Those are both lessons for us to learn from and sort of avoid.

Q: What is your personal critique?

Todd Hollenshead: For me, for the movie?

Q: Yeah.

Todd Hollenshead: I love it. I saw the full thing for the first time last night. I had seen an earlier cut of it in June, and so I think its great. Obviously I'm biased about it but in terms of how its true to the game, but not so much so that its going to alienate the broader audience that you really need to have to have a successful movie. I think that there is kind of a fine line to walk. You can't piss of the hard-core, because they'll rip the movie, and then nobody will want to go see it. If you appeal too much to the hard core, then there's only a small finite number of those people, and then nobody else in the mainstream wants to go see it either. So its a fine line to walk, but I think the movie walks right along it.

Q: Being inside of the industry, how do you perceive the criticism coming from Washington in terms of violence and the so-called copycat possibilities that violence can create in youngsters? Do you consider that this is just stupid, or is there a reason behind it?

Todd Hollenshead: The only reason behind that is just sort of paranoia. There are no studies or evidence indicating that any of those claims are true. But I guess our standpoint is that we're pretty strong believers that if you're an adult, you should really make decisions for yourself as to what sort of content and what is appropriate entertainment for you. We've never, we don't make 'em for kids we make 'em for adults and to restrict the sort of entertainment that adults are able to enjoy is anti- to the principles that Washington is supposed to be upholding for a society like the United States.

There's lots of contradictions in Washington. If I were to go down all those, you guys would be passed out down in the floor asleep before I finished up with them. Yeah, at least in terms of that sort of stuff, there have been numerous studies, and none of them have ever found any causal link between violence and video games. I mean I guess you would just think, if video games were so linked to violence, there would be you know stories of lots of fist fights among video game developers since they play video games all the time. But its far more common to have fist fights in the locker room for a football match.

Q: Are you coming out with another game?

Todd Hollenshead: We're working on a new property at ID. Its still in the concept phase, so it isn't really something we can talk about internally. It is something new, its not Wolfenstein, its not Doom, its not Quake, but we hope we'll be able to have some details about that at some point in the future. I just announced, the company just announced, that we have a new game in the Wolfenstein universe in development. For the first time in the history of ID, it's going to use a console, which is the X Box 360 that's its primary development platform. We've always sort of been focused on PC development.

Historically in fact, always focused on PC development, so for us its a really cool thing to see that a guy like John Carmack, who is by all accounts a technical genius, can find what he believes is the next generation. The next generation of visual is going to be supported by the console platform.

Q: Will there be more violence or less?

Todd Hollenshead: Well you can always do more, but to some extent you sort of make your own boundaries in terms of what you do and what you don't do. I mean you know, some video games are criticized for profanity, and some video games are criticized for sexual content, and some video games are criticized because they suck. We don't do; and there's not a lot of sexual content if any at all, in our video games.

We hope that they don't suck, I mean we certainly don't make them, I mean, that's not the goal that we set out with in the project. If it's anything it's like, we want it not to suck. Yeah, we make games for grown-ups and a lot of people at the company are my age, you know, a little bit younger, early twenties to early forties, and we're making games for adults and not little kids games. There's a difference in terms of content you want to convey. Yeah we did in the past, we made kids games Commander King was the franchise. In that game, you were a thirteen year old kid who fought evil vegetables and turned them into daises when you killed them. But ah, we've all gotten past that now and we want to make bad guys that are really scary and when you kill them they die.

[end]

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Staci Layne Wilson reporting