Day the Earth Stood Still
An Interview With Scott Derrickson
Interviewer: Yo
The Day The Earth Stood Still releases this Friday, and it's one of my most-anticipated films of the year. I still love the 1951 original and to be honest was rather skeptical about a remake. However, the awesome trailer and the information that slowly leaked out about the update got me excited about this movie. Well, I recently had a chance to talk with director Scott Derrickson about the remake, and here's what he had to say:
Yo: Hey Scott, how are you doing today?
Scott: I'm doing good. I'm losing my voice but I'm doing alright.
Yo: I'm sorry to hear that, but I guess that's the price you pay for talking with so many peons such as myself.
Scott: That's exactly right.
Yo: (laughing) Well first of all, I'm excited you're doing this remake and I find it fascinating that you met the director of the original movie; is that right? What was that like?
Scott: I did. The great Robert Wise, one of the greatest of the American directors in cinema history. I was a film student and I had a small film in a film festival in Indianapolis called the Heartland Film Festival and, this was in I think my first year in graduate film school, and he was at that film festival receiving a lifetime achievement award, and I asked the festival director if I could meet him and the festival director arranged a private dinner. I went to Robert Wise's hotel and had dinner with him in the hotel restaurant; it was incredible.
Yo: What was the one thing you really wanted to find out from him?
Scott: Well, I had so many questions, I had seen a lot of his films. At that point he made 39 films and I remember him telling me he wanted to end with 40; he wanted to do one more and he ended up doing one more. I mostly wanted to ask him about his films because I knew so many of them and loved them, in particularly a movie called The Haunting and The Day The Earth Stood Still. So I asked him a lot of questions about individual movies. Of course I asked him what every film student asks a major, successful director which is: what advice do you have for me as somebody who wants to become a professional, Hollywood filmmaker? He asked me, "what kind of films do you want to make?" I said, "I want to do what you've done; you've worked in all kinds of genres." I told him The Haunting and The Day The Earth Stood Still were my favorites, and he told me to start out in the horror genre. I asked him why and he said it's because it's the genre that most demonstrates your abilities with the camera and with sound design. You can be very aggressive in the way you direct and people will be able to see what you are able to do with that genre better than with any other genre and they tend to be less expensive movies. It's what he did; he stated off making some low-budget horror/thrillers way back in the day. I took his advice and that's when I made The Exorcism of Emily Rose and that worked out really well and now here I am talking about a remake I just did of his film.
Yo: I have to ask, why do a remake of such a venerated sci-fi classic? There's got to be some pressure and some risk in doing something like that seeing as how its such a tremendous film that's had a such a huge impact, especially on the sci-fi genre ever since it came out.
Scott: Yeah, absolutely. If you're going to remake any movie you have to have a good reason; if you're going to remake a classic you have to have a really good reason. The idea of doing a remake started with Twentieth Century Fox; they wanted to do it, they developed a script on their own and sent it to me. I was very skeptical because I loved the original so much that I didn't necessarily think it was a good idea. But when I got the script, I thought the script still needed a good amount of work but I understood the reason to do it after reading the script. First, it had been fifty-seven years since the original, but most importantly the original was so rooted in the social issues of its time. It was so about the Cold War and the fear of the Bomb and the struggle to establish the UN, so I said: a.) it was so long ago; and b.) times have changed so dramatically. I felt that telling the same story but updating it to be kind of the social realities of our time made a lot of sense to me. I think the other thing about it was it is a revered and respected original but the simple fact is the majority, the vast majority of the movie-going public nowadays has not seen that film. It's such an amazing story; I very much loved the idea of being able to bring that great story to a new generation of audience members who don't know it. Those were the primary reasons; there were others but they were the primary ones certainly for me in motivating me to do the film.
Yo: As a Christian I'm curious how much you were worried about either overplaying or underplaying the the Christ allegory this story has in it. When I first saw it, that's one of the things that struck me the most and I thought it was very interesting. It was one of the first films I can remember seeing a strong parallel to the figure of Christ. How did you balance that without overdoing it and hammering people on the head with it and at the same time... well, did you keep it in there, first of all?
Scott: Oh yeah, I actually think it would be very hard to do The Day The Earth Stood Still without it. I think if you make a decision to try and take that out, you'd have a hard time telling the story, it's so deeply entrenched in the narrative. The more sort of overt and obvious allegory moments, I still kept some of that in and added quite bit, frankly, because I like that about the original. I felt that it was part of where the power came from. The idea of updating that and creating some more imagery and allegorical elements is in there very strongly. It was actually one of the number one things that was brought by the international press as I took the film around the world for the international press tour. They in particular were really struck by that and were pleased not only that it was there but that it was there fairly strongly as well. There are some things, some elements from the original that I thought were a little clunky for a modern audience, and that's the challenge of doing a remake of a film that's fifty-seven years old; you have to figure out: how do I update some of these for a modern audience to where you have the same points but it's going to play but not as something that's old and out of date? But yeah, it's one of the reasons I wanted to do the movie, that was part of the appeal of the movie was that allegorical quality to the main character.
Yo: Well that's one of the reasons I always liked so much and when I heard there was remake being done, that's one of the reasons why I was not excited about that. I thought that they're going to mess it up in today's Hollywood world...
Scott: (laughing) I certainly hope I haven't done that.
Yo: ...I thought that they'd take that stuff out, and then I heard you were doing it and I thought well maybe this could be good. I liked what you did with your first film so that gave me some hope. Now, that ties into another question, why release this during the holiday season? Does it have anything to do with the fact that it is a Christ allegory? Was it just better because the summer was so crowded? Was there any particular reason for the timing of the film's release?
Scott: Uhh, the timing of these movie releases usually has very little to do with that and have everything to do with when your film comes together, when the actors and the stars' schedules come together and when the budget comes together. Once you start making it, if it is a big tent-pole movie, you shoot for either the summer or the holidays depending on which one you can get to first. So that, frankly, is coincidental. Once we got going, we knew that we would not be finished in time for the summer, but we would be finished in time for the holiday season. I am glad that it's coming out now because in the end I do think it's an optimistic movie and there are some ideas in it that will be that will resonate with audiences right now. I think this will be a good movie for the general public.
Yo: I think it's a good coincidence that a movie like this with such a strong allegory comes out right before Christmas.
Scott: Yeah, I love that, I think it's great.
Yo: When it comes to doing a remake like this, when it comes to some of the design of the film and the original, how did you decide what to keep, what to update, and what to totally redo?
Scott: Oh man. That, that right there is arguable one of the greatest challenges to doing the film. The way you worded that is probably a perfect articulation of the greatest challenge that I had in front of me when embarking on this process. What I ultimately decided on was that I was going to watch the original really carefully multiple times, and that I was going to first of all figure out which elements were sacred elements and just had to be there because without them it's not The Day The Earth Stood Still. Then beyond that, I tried to bring everything that I thought would update well for a modern audience, and the things that I thought would not update for a modern audience I wouldn't bring; and those were the things that were changed and those things were changed pretty dramatically. So it's an interesting blend I think, and I think the end result is an interesting blend of real respect for the original, because I do love the original and lot of the iconic elements are there and are recognizable, and then at the same time of lot of it is fresh and new and feels like what you would want from a big, tent-pole, popcorn movie in 2008.
Yo: Well, Scott, thanks so much for time. You have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year and I'm so stoked to see this film; I'll be front row center this Friday.
Scott: Thanks, Yo. That's fantastic, and Merry Christmas to you too