Movies

Rosamund Pike regrets this video game adaptation starring The Rock: “I probably could have ended my career”

The actress recalls filming with Dwayne Johnson: “[There were] macho guys. There were weights on the set.”

Update: Mar 13th, 2026 16:38 CET

Fortunately, today we can say the opposite, but there was a time when adapting a video game for the big screen was practically synonymous with disaster. ‘Doom,’ released in 2005 and starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Karl Urban, wasn’t just the exception—it’s actually one of the clearest examples, with a dismal 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. Today, Rosamund Pike, who also appeared in that film, has come to regret having been part of it. “I probably could have ended my career,” she recalls.

“When I was making ‘Pride & Prejudice’ and I was having great fun in my cornfields in my bonnet, I get a call to be in an action franchise,” said the London-born actress. “They were making a cinema version, a narrative version of the video game ‘Doom.’ And I think in my bonnet, in my field of hay bales, ‘Yeah, I can do anything. I can jump on this hay bale in my crinoline, so I can certainly go and kill some zombies on Mars.’”

Rosamund Pike regrets this video game adaptation starring The Rock: “I probably could have ended my career”

“So suddenly I’m in this film with the Rock, and I realize how utterly ill-equipped I am to be an action star,,” Pike continues. “[There were] macho guys. There were weights on the set. Every time a gun was brought out, it was kind of like a holy relic for the ‘Doom’ fans. I was just out of my comfort zone, out of my league, out of my depth.”

“It was just probably one of the worst films ever made. I mean, it was a catastrophe. I don’t read the reviews, but you get the sense like you’re lucky to have survived that one,” she says.

What is ‘Doom’ about, and where can you watch it?

Despite its star-studded cast, ‘Doom’ didn’t escape harsh—and justified—criticism. “A team of space marines known as the Rapid Response Tactical Squad, led by Sarge, is sent to a science facility on Mars after a security breach is reported. There, they learn that the alert came after a test subject—a mass murderer who had been deliberately injected with alien DNA—broke free and began killing people. Dr. Grimm, who is related to team member Reaper, informs them all that the chromosome can mutate humans into monsters—and is highly infectious,” reads the official synopsis.