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Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

20 | Scott Derrickson on Cinema, Blockbusters, Horror, and Mystery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

Sean Carroll

Physics, Science

4.74.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2018

⏱️ 83 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Special Halloween edition? Scott Derrickson is a film-lover first and a director second, but he's been quite successful at the latter -- you may know him as the director and co-writer of Marvel's Doctor Strange. (When I was younger, Doctor Strange was one of my favorite comic characters, along with Green Lantern. At least one of them got a great movie.) Scott was gracious enough to take time from a very busy schedule to sit down for a chat about a wide number of topics. Using Doctor Strange as a template, we go in some detail through the immensely complicated process of taking a modern blockbuster movie from pitch to screen. But Scott's genre of choice is horror -- his other films include Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose -- and we move on to discussing why certain genres seem universal, before tackling even bigger issues about worldviews (Scott is Christian, I'm a naturalist) and how they affect one's life and work. Scott Derrickson is an acclaimed director, producer, and screenwriter. He earned his M.A. in film production from the University of Southern California. His films as a director include Hellraiser: Inferno, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Sinister, Deliver Us from Evil, and Doctor Strange. He has written or co-written numerous other films, including Land of Plenty (directed by Wim Wenders) and Devil's Knot (directed by Atom Egoyan). Wikipedia page IMDB page Twitter Doctor Strange on Wikipedia Interview with Scott Myers

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello everyone and welcome to the Mindscape Podcast.

0:03.2

I'm your host, Sean Carroll.

0:05.0

Today we have a special treat.

0:06.5

Scott Derrickson is an accomplished movie director,

0:09.4

writer and producer responsible for films

0:12.1

such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose,

0:14.7

Sinister, and most recently The Marvel Movie, Doctor Strange.

0:19.0

Scott's also an extremely thoughtful guy

0:20.9

with strong ideas about the craft of filmmaking,

0:23.7

the history of cinema, and the relationship

0:26.3

between movies and other art forms.

0:28.4

So we have a wide-ranging conversation

0:30.1

which basically falls into two parts.

0:31.9

The first thing we did was we sort of deconstructed

0:34.6

the making of a big blockbuster superhero movie

0:39.2

using Doctor Strange as an example.

0:41.0

So we lay out the whole thing from the initial pitch,

0:43.6

the meeting where you talk to the studio

0:45.3

and see if you're on the same wavelength,

0:47.2

through pre-production, shooting, reshoots,

0:50.0

and finally post-production.

0:51.7

You'll learn, for example, why the cast and crew,

...

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