A release date has been announced for Doom: Annihilation. The adaptation of the classic 3D FPS follows a squadron of space marines as they respond to a distress call on a research base situated on one of the moons of Mars, whereupon they discover that a portal to hell has been opened and they must fight for their lives against the demonic hordes.

The film has been in production since April last year, although there has been little in the way of fanfare or production updates, with the film’s Twitter feed having posted just 44 times in the 16 months it’s been operational. The release of a trailer in March was the first that many people heard about it, which subsequently received an almost universally negative reaction.

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The release date of October 1 was revealed in a short video posted to Doom: Annihilation’s official Twitter feed. It shows the DVD cover art of a creature with features resembling those of a traditional Zeta grey alien, but mutated into some fell beast with fangs dripping demonic slime. An earlier release date had previously been planned, but was postponed to allow the VFX artists more time to realize the infernal creatures, as well as some further location work and pick up photography to augment the setting.

A previous adaptation of Doom was released in 2005 starring Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban, and was met with a decidedly negative reception. It kept the same setting of an overrun Martian research facility, but changed the antagonistic abominations from demonic hellspawn to regular humans mutated through dangerous and experimental genetic engineering that fused their DNA with that taken from the corpses of an extinct Martian race of humanoids. Even a widely publicized sequence filmed as though from an FPS gamer’s perspective failed to warm audiences to it, and it quite rightly became just another statistic in the litany of failed computer game adaptations. This version looks to be hewing closer the game’s admittedly limited story, as well as including destructive weaponry seen in the trailer such as Amy Manson’s Joan Dark wielding the iconic BFG superweapon, and a buzzing chainsaw being swung at advancing monsters.

Doom: Annihilation was never planned to have any cinema screenings and had always been intended as a DTV and VOD release, but even so the release date seems somewhat arbitrary. Seeing as it’s going to be a brutally violent R-rated horror movie, at the very least the release could have been held off a few weeks to coincide with Halloween. There doesn’t appear to have been a lot of faith put in the film’s success, so it wouldn’t be too cynical to suggest that Doom: Annihilation has been quickly churned out as a way for Universal to keep a hold of the rights to make further adaptations of the Doom franchise, although if this is to be taken as a benchmark of their intent, what they plan to do with them is anyone’s guess.

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Source: Doom: Annihilation