Scott Derrickson Reveals The Dire Secret Of “The Gorge”

Now on Apple TV+

The first thing that attracted filmmaker Scott Derrickson to Zach Dean’s screenplay was that it was original - not based on any IP.

The next thing for Scott was trying to untangle this genre cocktail before adding his fingerprints to The Gorge.

Scott Derrickson and his writing/ producing partner C. Robert Cargill were generally satisfied with Dean’s script, but wanted to elevate the romance between Levi (Teller) and Drasa (Taylor-Joy). These scenes represent about a third of the script which they felt were understated and “sublime in places.”

Scott was happy with the overall setup and mystery of The Gorge, but he wanted to add more layers to the mythology of it. He felt it read too much like a “straight zombie movie” in early drafts. “There wasn’t enough originality to the visuals. We had to deliver things we haven’t seen before. We had to deliver some real surprises,” he iterates.

He then added the secret government military experiments taking place. “We felt it would be interesting if we played with this human hybrid DNA idea and drew more on folk horror regarding the source of the monsters,” he continues.

Read our complete interview with Scott Derrickson HERE.