There’s been a well-documented writing cycle for the first standalone film for the Fantastic Four’s nemesis. Fargo and Legion’s Noah Hawley has been writing a Captain America: Winter Soldier-esque Doctor Doom movie for Fox over the past year - and we finally have another update. The origin story of the masked and cloaked baddie has been said to be one of political intrigue and all the thrills fake Eastern Europe can offer. Now we know a little bit more (even though some of the news isn’t the best).

Hawley spoke to Vulture about the script’s progress and what’s holding him back from making the movie he wants to see. First things first, the script is done.

“I wrote a script that I really like and the studio really likes,” the writer said. But it’s not quite at shooting script levels (“It needs a little work”), even if Hawley wasn’t about to jump headfirst into his astronaut project Pale Blue Dot. That Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm film will consume much of his time for the foreseeable future. “It’s hard for me, at this exact moment — because I start shooting another movie in five weeks — to do that work,” Hawley said. “So, I mean, my hope is to go back to [the Doom movie] after [Pale Blue Dot].” He only hopes this because a lot can happen in the next few months.

Fox, for instance, could be consumed by Disney (or Comcast, for that matter). Its entertainment properties have been the prize a pending corporate merger has sought for a long time, and their acquisition by Disney (which owns the Marvel’s comic characters that Fox doesn’t) would really throw some wrenches into the narrative works.

“I know there’s also a little uncertainty, given the potential for a Disney merger and the fact that Marvel may regain control of X-Men and Fantastic Four,” Hawley notes. “They may have a plan of their own in a desk drawer. I just don’t know. So, I think there’s sort of a sense of uncertainty.” Hawley’s script could be thrown out over a contingency plan that the MCU heads have locked away on the off chance they get to add the Fantastic Four and X-Men to their sandbox - so just another hitch in this movie ever seeing light (even if Fox “would like to make it”).