Scott Derrickson talks about directing the critical flop The Day The Earth Stood Still, saying making the movie was a "horrific experience." Released in 2008, the film did well at the box office, pulling in over $233 million, but was widely panned by critics with many faulting the story as incoherent and stilted. The film starred Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, and Kathy Bates.
Based on the 1951 film of the same name, The Day The Earth Stood Still followed Reeves' Klaatu, an alien in human form who visits Earth to save it from destruction. While the original film was an allegory for nuclear warfare, the remake was updated to be about humanity's destruction of the environment. The film is considered a low point in Reeves' career, which wouldn't see a resurgence until the first John Wick film was released in 2014.
In an interview with Slash Film, Derrickson talks about making the movie, calling it a horrible experience, and how the movie turned out very poorly. He says the film's poor quality was due to a number of reasons, the biggest being the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America Strike, which brought movie and television production to a halt for 100 days, including most of the filming schedule for The Day The Earth Stood Still. Following the movie's failure, Derrickson says he couldn't get hired as a director for years, not releasing another movie until the hit horror film Sinister in 2012. Read his quote below:
[I]t was a horrific experience and the movie did not turn out good. Well, it turned out okay in places at least. But it was one of those movies where it didn't turn out as well as it needed to because of a lot of reasons, the writers' strike being the main one. And so after that movie, I was not really employable as a director for almost two years.
How Scott Derrickson's Career Improved After Day The Earth Stood Still
After The Day The Earth Stood Still came out, Derrickson returned to his indie horror roots, directing Sinister, and Deliver Us From Evil which both made returns at the box office. Derrickson then directed his biggest film to date - Marvel's Doctor Strange, which grossed over $677 million. Derrickson's latest film, The Black Phone was also quite profitable and received critical acclaim from critics and horror fans, cementing him as a reliable director for both large and small projects.
The Day The Earth Stood Still helped continue an unfortunate trend in Hollywood that's worsened in recent years, that favors films with elaborate effects over original storytelling. Though The Day The Earth Stood Still isn't ed fondly, its box office returns signaled to distributors that general audiences want impressive spectacle above all else. In the end, Derrickson was very lucky to escape the negative reception of The Day The Earth Stood Still, and can hopefully keep his horror genre winning streak alive with his next film V/H/S/85.
Source: Slash Film
