"GI: Going back to Doom, what’s it been like working on the Doom movie project?

TH: Well lately it’s been great, but before that it was sort of hit and miss. I started at id in 1996. About a year before that a deal was signed originally to do the movie. The focus of the company had changed to Quake, and then it was Quake 2, Quake 3. The movie was floating around in purgatory for a while and we couldn’t really get a good script at all. I don’t think there was a lot of motivation with the people who had the ability to actually get the project together.

Then when we came to E3 2002, I think we absolutely hit a home run with the presentation that we did for Doom 3, Hollywood took notice, and it was like Doom was back. At that time we had linked up with CAA as an agent who had real influence within Hollywood and had the contacts to get us in with the right people, and also had some interesting ideas about how to filter who was really interested in making a movie which was going to be a cool movie that was something that wouldn’t be an embarrassment to us, which is a big risk with movies based on videogames.

Also partnering with John Wells which is the last thing he needs to do is release a bad movie. He’s done West Wing and E.R. and probably moves money around like I move dirt. They don’t just want to make a great movie but they want to make a movie that’s true to what Doom meant to fans. They felt the key piece of making that is getting us involved. We had certain contractual rights, like we had meaningful consultation and those sorts of things. But on paper that’s not worth a s*** if people on the project don’t want the input. But they actually wanted our input.

I went through 30 different scripts. The effects people worked closely with our art department. We sent them a lot of content from the game so they could get the characters and the demons and the sets right. I was over at the set in Prague a couple of times and I knew they nailed it before I met anyone, because I went to a set where they weren’t filming and they let me horse around and check out what they’d done and it was literally like stepping out of Prague and stepping into Doom 3. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so cool!”

I can’t say that I’m a super hardcore fan of The Rock like some of his fans are, but obviously I knew who the guy was and I liked his work in movies. I’m not a huge professional wrestling fan but if you’re not a fan you know who The Rock is, but he’s Dwayne Johnson to me. He’s super enthusiastic and he’s a super nice guy.

Carl Urban is a great actor and a star in a different capacity. Carl is more of a low key guy. Both of those guys have been super cool with us, and interested, and asking, “When you’re making a game what do you think about this?” It kind of drove the point home with me when I got to the set for the first time and saw that they were making our movie. You didn’t want to touch anything for fear that you’d wake up from the dream, almost. I was like, “Hey, can I take a picture?” and the guy said, “Man this is your movie, you can do whatever you want to! We’re all out here because you guys made this videogame” (laughs)"