It appears that Legion creator Noah Hawley's planned Doctor Doom film is once again in limbo.
"I mean, where it stands is now that the movie is done and Legion is done and I’ve taken a little time off because someone told me there was this word 'vacation,' which means you don’t work, which sounded really interesting to me," Hawley told Deadline when asked where the Doctor Doom movie stands since The Walt Disney Company's acquisition of 21st Century Fox. "But you know, I need to circle back to them and announce that I would love to make it and figure out if that’s something that is possible. Whether or not they already have a plan in place for what to do with those characters or whether they’re open to my kind of vision for what to do with those characters. But it’s sort of on me right now to go push them, which I will do as soon as I come up for air."
Hawley first teased his Doctor Doom film in 2017 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. After progress on the Disney/Fox deal began to gain traction in early 2018, he confirmed the project was still actively in development, and the following June, he revealed the film's script had been completed. Then, in March 2019, shortly after it was believed the project was dead, Hawley reaffirmed it was still very much alive and that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige approached him to discuss his progress. Most recently, in June, he even stated he and Marvel were "still talking about making it."
Doctor Doom is the arch-nemesis of Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four superhero group. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The Fantastic Four #5 in 1962. His origins have been revised numerous times, but he is consistently depicted as the braggadocious ruler of a fictitious country named Latveria. Doctor Doom is highly intelligent and boasts a mastery of both science and magic, the two of which he frequently fuses with ease.