TMW #26: Scott Derrickson interview, Super Bowl trailers and a big red quiz

Speaking to the director of The Gorge, and looking back and the best (and worst) movie-spoofing Super Bowl trailers

Happy Tuesday movie maniacs,

This weekend our friends across the pond held their annual showcase of movie trailers, movie-spoofing adverts and movie stars awkwardly smiling on a jumbotron while sitting on uncomfortable plastic chairs, aka the Super Bowl (apparently sport is involved in some capacity as well). As such we’re bringing you the best and worst movie-themed Super Bowl ads from across the years, ranging from Jurassic Park Jeeps to the Big Lebowski/Sex and the City crossover no one asked for, or remembers.

That piece, as well as an interview with The Gorge director Scott Derrickson, are free for all Wingman readers. Paying subscribers also unlock a bonus early Trailer Club breaking down the major new teases that dropped over the weekend, as well as some critical thoughts on irksome review embargo practices. Brighten these miserable February days by upgrading to a paid subscription for the price of a Pret sandwich, and receive bonus Wingman writings every Tuesday and Friday.

Not ready to upgrade? No sweat! We deeply appreciate every Wingman reader, and especially those who like, share or simply send good vibes our way. We hope you enjoy today’s dispatch. Why not let us know your favourite movie-spoofing ad in the comments, or over on the Wingman chat. We’ll be back on Friday with reviews of the week’s big releases, including Captain America: Brave New World, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and more. See you then.

Jordan (Matt and Matthew)

Scott Derrickson interview

The director of The Gorge on mounting a big-budget genre bender

Scott Derrickson (credit: Apple)

Original, blockbuster genre movies are an all-too-rare occurrence these days, which makes The Gorge - streaming on Apple TV+ from Friday – a film of note. Directed by Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, Sinister), it stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller as Drasa and Levi – elite snipers who are recruited by their respective countries to watch over a mysterious gorge and stop the creatures within from getting out, all while unexpectedly falling in love.

Recently, The Movie Wingman spoke to Derrickson about the film, including tackling romance on screen for the first time, the film’s ambitious mix of genres, casting Sigourney Weaver in a supporting role and how a film of The Gorge’s scale was the perfect palette cleanser between The Black Phone and its upcoming sequel. Read on for our chat, and update your Valentine’s Day plans accordingly.

Scott, you are a dyed-in-the-wool genre filmmaker. Did you ever anticipate that you'd be the person releasing this year's most romantic movie on Valentine's Day?

No, I didn't think that would ever happen! A couple of years before I was given this script I fell in love and remarried, and so the romantic elements of it spoke to me, for sure. And then when it went off into the genre territory that it did it was very alluring to me.

It’s an unusual genre hybrid – there’s romance, action, horror, sci-fi and more in the mix. That must have been exciting.

For sure. I think it was two major things: the romantic aspect of it, and how well I thought it was written. The way they fought to be together and fell in love at a distance was really sublime. I thought Zach [Dean]’s writing was really wonderful. And then there were the hybrid genre elements. It was combining them structurally in a way I had never seen before.

And so I thought, ‘Tentpole movies are almost always now, franchises, sequels, IP at the very least.’ And here was a totally original story that defied my expectations. I didn't know where it was going when I was reading it. And I thought, ‘This is the kind of event movie I want to see.’ And that's why I chose to do it.

Was it a hard film to finance, by dint of being a big-budget original story?

No, [production company Skydance] brought it to me wanting to make it. It was an easy decision because they told me how much they were willing to spend on it and asked me to do it. I did do a fair amount of writing work on it. Especially for what's inside the gorge, because I thought the promise and the mystery of the gorge was so effective in Zach's script, I just wanted to make sure that when we got down there the unique mythology was delivering something that wasn't just zombies or something familiar that we'd seen before.

You must have known that the film would live or die on casting two stars you could believably sense the sparks flying between…

First of all, you had to believe both of them elite snipers! And then you had to believe them romantically falling in love with each other – that’s a tall order. I just had an instinct that they would have good chemistry. And, honestly, they had better chemistry than I was even expecting.

Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller in The Gorge (credit: Apple)

It’s an unusual romance in the sense that they are isolated from each other in their towers on either side of the gorge during that typical courting period.

That was the big challenge directorially: how to shoot the movie in a way that was visually interesting without the two leads ever being in the same shot together. It took a lot of preparation to figure out how to keep that fast. Just communicating with cards and messages and looking through binoculars could become very tedious very quickly, so I had to figure out how to keep it dynamic.

A typical romantic movie will climax with the two people getting together. But you have to accelerate that process because the film becomes something else entirely in the second half.

It's more than halfway when they actually go into the gorge together. That made me hesitant to do the movie, and then I realised, ‘This is what Titanic did.’ That film really took its time getting to know the characters before all hell broke loose. And I thought that was so exciting, to be able to take that kind of time for the relationship. I think it makes the action and experience inside the gorge much more meaningful because you actually care about these people.

Did you feel you were stretching a different muscle as a filmmaker, or is romance another facet of the character work you do in every film?

No, that's a really good question. When you do horror, you're almost always dealing with either really young people – teenagers, kids – or you're dealing with adults who end up in isolated terror. There was something about a movie that was fundamentally going to work or not work depending on the relationship between two actors. Especially when you go off into all the craziness [in the gorge] and being able to prioritise that [relationship] when they look at each other. The way they work as a [fighting] unit – I think that's very romantic! That was definitely new for me, and I really enjoyed that part of the process.

How much do you want to say about what Levi and Drasa find in the gorge?

I’ll say that audiences can expect science fiction, action, horror, political thriller. A lot of hybrid genre elements put together in a way that is a mystery revealed. That's what I can say.

I was struck by how colourful the world of the gorge is, particularly at a time when the vogue for films seems to be desaturated colour palettes. Were you consciously bucking a trend with the film’s visuals?

Yeah, that wasn't in the script. I really felt that when we got down there, it should be a different universe. Mario Bava and [Dario] Argento are big inspirations for the overall look, the saturated colours. But I also wanted that colour to have a story purpose. When you find out why that coloured atmosphere is what it is, it's a story reveal. So I was looking for a way to tie it all together, but also give the film a really unique look.

And we haven’t mentioned that Sigourney Weaver is also in the film, as something of a villain. Was that a bucket-list bit of casting for you?

Total bucket list, are you kidding? I'm a Gen X’er, man. We grew up on Alien and Aliens. She's everything you'd want her to be. The thing I said to her that made her say ‘yes’ was, ‘Look, I don't know how you are reading this character but it’d be very easy to think this is the villain, but this character is doing what she thinks is right.’ And then she said: ‘As long as you understand that, I think I'd like to do this movie.’

You must have been busy of late because The Black Phone 2 is also releasing this Halloween…

I just finished shooting it. I was shooting in Toronto last night. I took a late-night flight back [to LA]. It was very deliberate for me. I didn't feel obliged to make a sequel to Black Phone. But I realised if I put a big movie in-between them I could make the sequel a high school coming-of-age movie in the same way the original was a middle school coming-of-age movie. So it became necessary to finish The Gorge and hurry right into pre-production on Black Phone 2 because of Ethan's availability and the age of the kids. I think it's gonna be a terrific film, to be honest with you, I really love what we shot.

A lot of people are very curious how [Black Phone spoiler alert!] Ethan’s character The Grabber is back in The Black Phone 2 given how the first film ends…

Scott Derrickson: We're all very curious! You'll see. (Jordan Farley)

The Gorge is on Apple TV+ from Friday 14 February.

The most memorable movie-themed Super Bowl ads

Countless Super Bowl commercials have riffed on movies over the years, and here we round up 10 of the good, bad and wtf…

GOOD: APPLE

THE FILM: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

THE AD: A simple but effective revival of 2001’s HAL 9000 as a way of bigging up Macintosh computers’ effectiveness against the dreaded millennium bug. Sure, any riff on a classic film/character is going to raise eyebrows, but Kubrick himself gave this one the go-ahead, and at least this classy effort stays fully in character. The voice - not by original actor Douglas Rain, but Tom Kane (who does a lot of Star Wars animated characters) - remains creepy as hell. (MM)

GOOD: AUSTRALIA

THE FILM: The Crocodile Dundee series (1986-2001)

THE AD: This faux ‘Son of Crocodile Dundee’ movie starring Danny McBride and a who’s who of Australian talent originally seemed to be teasing a new movie, before it was revealed to be a big Super Bowl ad for Aussie tourism. Almost too effective for its own good, it left a lot of people miffed that it wasn’t actually a movie after all. Hollywood, it’s not too late… (MM)

BAD: POPCORNERS

THE SHOW: Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

THE AD: Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) reteamed with BB creator Vince Gilligan for this snack ad that cashes in on the celebrated TV show’s credit with utter shamelessness, as the duo cook up triangular corn chips in their RV. Legendary fictional characters deserve some sort of legal protections against these indignities. (MM)

BAD: HÄAGEN-DAZS

THE FILM: The Fast & Furious series (2001-2026)

THE AD: Noted family man Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his on-off partner Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) give up the fast life, temporarily at least, for a chocolate-coated ice-cream stick in a howler from this year’s crop. While the stars (including a cameoing Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges) aren’t required to do anything too embarrassing per se, there’s something unforgivably crass about putting out something this lame while the franchise is still running. At least wait until it has concluded before siphoning out the last dregs of commercial potential. (MM)

GOOD: JEEP

THE FILM: Groundhog Day (1993)

THE AD: Groundhog Day feels like fair game for this sort of thing, given how frequently the living-the-same-day-over concept has been recycled in the decades since the film opened. This car commercial also benefits from Bill Murray’s trademark sardonic delivery, adding a welcome note of cynicism in an arena that’s normally all about the hard sell. And, it’s actually pretty darn funny too. (MM)

BAD: JEEP

THE FILM: Jurassic Park (1993)

THE AD: Another Jeep-based riff on a classic ’93 movie, but with less pedal to the metal. Some nice stunt-driving, sure, but the USP is supposed to be Jeff Goldblum doing his, ah, ah, you know, his thing. Only he doesn’t really do it. Any hope of redemption is squandered by a particularly feeble payoff. The Jurassic World: Dominion of movie-parody ads. (ML)

GOOD: FEDEX

THE FILM: Cast Away (2000)

THE AD: An inspired comic riff on the epilogue of the Zemeckis/Hanks drama, as a formerly marooned FedEx man finally delivers the unopened package he’s looked after for five years. Unlike in the movie, we get to find out what’s in the box… a hilarious gut-punch, that’s what. A well-played piss-take of Oscar-bait earnestness. (ML)

GOOD: AUDI

THE FILM: The Godfather (1972)

THE AD: A car ad sending up the notorious ‘horse’s head’ scene from Coppola’s masterpiece… you can doubtless guess the outcome, but you’ll still LOL at the reveal thanks to the spot-on recreation of the original’s stomach-knotting build-up. Easter egg alert: the actor is Alex Rocco, who played mobster Moe Greene (another Corleone victim) in the 1972 movie. (ML)

BAD: PEPSI

THE FILM: Field of Dreams (1989)

THE AD: Remember the heartrending ending of the Kevin Costner movie? How the meaning of all those cryptic whispers (“ease his pain”; “go the distance”) is finally, beautifully explained after 100-odd minutes of magic and mystery? Now see it all ruined in a gleefully bathetic 30-second riposte. If you build it, someone else will come and tear it down. (ML)

WTF: STELLA ARTOIS

THE SHOW/FILM: Sex and the City (1998-2004); The Big Lebowski (1998)

THE AD: An iconic, much-loved character walks into a bar… but doesn’t order her usual! Followed by another iconic, much-loved character, who doesn’t order his usual, either!! And just like that, a wildly unlikely but abiding mash-up was created, with the charitable goal of promoting safe water access (as well as, you know, beer). (ML)

*A round-up of this year’s Super Bowl trailers for the biggest upcoming movies, a grumble about review embargoes, and a red-hot quiz can be found below the paywall*