Rosamund Pike Feels 'Partly To Blame' For The Failure Of The Doom Film

"Gone Girl" and "The Wheel of Time" star Rosamund Pike has been in a lot of different movies and TV shows over the years, but there's one big regret: the 2005 video game adaptation "Doom." The movie was panned by critics and audiences alike, and Pike apparently feels that she's partially to blame. 

In an interview with Collider to promote the upcoming "Wheel of Time" series, Pike was asked if she had learned anything from the failures of "Doom," which was her first big science-fiction/fantasy project:

"I feel partly to blame in that respect because I think I failed just through ignorance and innocence to understand, to fully get a picture of what Doom meant to fans at that point. I wasn't a gamer. I didn't understand. If I knew what I knew now, I would have dived right into all of that and got fully immersed in it like I do now. And I just didn't understand. I feel embarrassed, really. I feel embarrassed that I was sort of ignorant of what it meant and I didn't know how to go about finding out because the internet wasn't the place it is now for the fans to speak up. I wouldn't have known where to find them. I do now! In fact, I now have many friends who were massive fans of the game and I just wish I had known them then."

While it's very sweet of her to realize that she didn't give it her all and that she should have taken stewardship of the beloved franchise more seriously, the blame for "Doom" being doomed does not rest squarely on her shoulders. 

"Doom" was supposed to break the curse of video game movies. It starred Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Sarge and Karl "Éomer" Urban as John Grimm, and reportedly cost more than $60 million to make, but brought in just $58 million at the worldwide box office, rendering it a certified failure. Fans of the video games were frustrated by the film, which completely missed what made the "Doom" games so much fun, and non-gamers had no interest in seeing it in the first place. It was a lose-lose situation, with problems at every level of production. 

Beyond production issues, "Doom" simply missed the mark. The video game series follows the unnamed "Doomguy," a space marine who fights hordes of demonic beings and tries to prevent the apocalypse. The games are brutally violent with heavy metal soundtracks, and it's less about the story than gameplay and aesthetics. The 2005 movie tried to make "Doom" into a traditional narrative. The Clint Mansell score at least tried to stay true to the series' heavy metal roots with a Nine Inch Nails remix, but it also feels like a watered-down version of the game's rocking riffs. 

No single person is to blame for the failure of "Doom," and Pike is near the bottom of the list. At least she learned from the experience and went on to do better things. Maybe one day we'll get a more faithful "Doom" adaptation and Pike can take a second shot at video game greatness. There have been a few false starts, so who knows?

For now, we can check her out in "The Wheel of Time," debuting November 19, 2021, on Amazon Prime.