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While some Colorado kids grow up on the ski slopes or climb fourteeners on their fourth birthdays, Scott Derrickson’s Centennial State childhood was marked by movies.
Growing up in Shaw Heights, an unincorporated community just outside of Westminster, in the 1970s, Derrickson and his family would attend matinee screenings at the Westminster mall multiplex, sometimes followed by double features at the drive-in. “There weren’t a lot of families doing that. That was the best thing about my family growing up. We were all movie lovers,” Derrickson says. “That’s where my real love of movies began, because I was exposed to all different kinds of films.”
All that time in front of the silver screen eventually inspired Derrickson to become a Hollywood filmmaker himself. Since completing his graduate studies at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, Derrickson has directed a swath of Hollywood horror films (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, Deliver Us From Evil, and The Black Phone), remade the sci-fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still, and overseen the Marvel action blockbuster Doctor Strange.
Derrickson’s new film, The Gorge, combines many of the elements of his prior works. The sci-fi action horror film stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as two elite snipers who are assigned to guard either side of a cavernous and impenetrable gorge. The only problem? Neither of them knows what lurks within it.
Ahead of its February 14 release on Apple TV+, we spoke with Derrickson about The Gorge, making original movies in the current Hollywood landscape, and how being from Colorado has shaped his creativity.
Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
5280: Growing up in North Denver, did you make films as a youngster?
Scott Derrickson: I was playing with Super Eight cameras when I was in middle school and high school. I was very interested in the medium. As an undergrad, I wasn’t very career-driven. I was very confused, as you’re supposed to be when you’re 19. I ended up studying philosophy and literature for five years. But by the end of that, I knew I wanted to go to film school.
How has your childhood in Denver impacted and inspired your movies?
I could talk about that all day. I love Colorado. I think about it all the time. I have very, very fond feelings for the city of Denver. I saw a lot of it growing up. My father drove me all over the city. I think the biggest impact that Colorado had on me was the weather, which is a big part of the movies that I make. I’ve been all over the world, and there’s no place that has more distinct seasons than Colorado—Denver, specifically. The crisp fall, the freezing winter, the lush spring, the hot summer. Part of my biological clock is always waiting for the weather to change. I live in Los Angeles, so it never happens. There’s something about Denver’s weather that makes you feel very alive. Even when I go back, it doesn’t matter what time of year, I feel that sense of aliveness in the presence of the weather in that city. The natural environment is gorgeous. You have the mountains to your west. It feels like they’re watching over you. That’s a wonderful thing to grow up with.
It’s also a weird place: the JonBenét Ramsey case; the Columbine shootings; Ted Bundy came through Colorado killing women. Weird things happen there. There’s a weird energy to Denver. Boulder even more so. There’s something dark. I also grew up downwind of Rocky Flats [an old nuclear weapons production plant], so the plutonium levels are so high in the city. I saw so many fights growing up. People were fighting and bleeding all the time. There’s an electric danger that I associate with growing up there. I feel like I am the product of that violence, occult strangeness, and weather systems. It’s what makes me who I am.
How did you get involved in The Gorge?
Skydance [Media] was looking for a director. They sent it to me. I was really taken by the originality of it. I couldn’t believe that they were willing to spend the money on such an audacious, original idea. It was a genre hybrid, which mixed five or six different genres. It was very exciting. It was the originality of the genre elements, but also the love story that excited me. In the few years before that, I had fallen in love and remarried. The romantic aspect of the movie really spoke to me: the two people fighting hard to be together and how that melted into this very unlikely action, sci-fi, horror, political thriller. I just thought that this is the kind of event movie I want to see. It’s not a sequel. It’s not a franchise movie. It’s its own universe, and there’s nothing like it. I can’t compare it to anything else.
What made the script so unique?
There is no script like this script. It just mixes so many genres. The only movie I could compare it to is Titanic, in the way that it spends so much time with the characters before all hell breaks loose. I met filmmaker James Cameron on the set of Avatar. He was telling me the mistake that he made on The Abyss was that he was so worried about the special effects. In the end, the best scene was two people in an air tank. With Titanic, by the time most movies have ended, the ship hadn’t even hit the iceberg yet. That’s part of what I liked about The Gorge’s script. It took the time to get to know these two people as individuals and got viewers invested in the relationship and them fighting to be together. Then, when the action starts, the romance doesn’t end. It’s an extension of it. There weren’t any specific films that I really could draw on in the way it moves between different genre elements. Part of the fun of it was figuring that out.
How did Miles and Anya get involved?
I cast them. I had to think of two actors who I would believe as elite snipers. Snipers tend to be young people. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military record holder for the most confirmed kills was a 19-year-old. He was just this country kid who was such a good shot. So I like the idea of these young people who I believe are snipers. I believed that Anya was a sniper. I believed that Miles was a sniper. Then, you need to have confidence in their acting abilities. They’re portraying a lot of sophisticated nuances, especially in the first part of the movie, because there’s a lot of reactive scenes. I got lucky. They had amazing chemistry. You can never really predict that.
What is it like to make a big-budget, original film in the current climate?
It’s hard to get your money back, theatrically, from a movie that’s this unique. It’s not a piece of intellectual property, a sequel, a franchise, and it’s expensive. The gamble you’re taking after marketing is big. The chances of getting that money back are always against you. I understand why studios are hesitant to do that, but that’s part of the thrill of streaming services—especially a company like Apple. They can afford to make movies like this. They’re willing to take big swings on a movie that’s not typical. It’s not what you expect from a tentpole movie [a big-budget film designed to make a profit].
I hope people really watch the movie. I think they’ll be surprised at the uniqueness of the experience, because it provides something that viewers don’t typically get from movies of this size. I hope they feel emotionally moved by the journey of these characters, by their relationship, their love story, and the transformation that they undergo. It’s a ride. It’s romantic, it’s moving, it’s scary, it’s exciting, and it’s a fulfilling way to spend an evening. That’s what you want as a filmmaker. For people to think they spent their time and money well when watching what you’ve made.
