Out promoting his contribution to horror anthology series “V/H/S/85,” filmmaker Scott Derrickson (“Sinister,” “The Black Phone”) has spoken about some of the projects he’s been involved on over the years that didn’t end up making it to screen.
Recently as reported earlier, Derrickson’s comments have covered his exit from Marvel Studios’ “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness” and how there’s no bad blood there. He’s also gushed about Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and how he thinks its a serious Best Picture contender.
In a new conversation with The Playlist’s Discourse Podcast, he was asked about a potential return to Marvel Studios or hopping over to DC Films someday.
He confirmed he was at one point offered what became “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,” but he gave the project a pass as he didn’t like the script:
“Yeah, I was offered ‘Ghost Rider 2′ [Spirit of Vengeance] when I was kind of in director’s jail, and I read the script, and I was like, ‘Well, this probably will end my career if I do this’.
I just didn’t think that it was something that was going to do particularly well. And I don’t think I ever saw the movie, so no criticism of what they ended up doing in the end, but it just wasn’t for me to do.”
That doesn’t mean he dislikes Ghost Rider, quite the contrary:
“I think Ghost Rider is a great comic. I think it’s great mythology and I think there’s a really great movie to be made from there.”
On the DC side, Derrickson says he’s had one character in mind:
“I’ve always expressed interest in Constantine. I love the Hellblazer comics. I’ve read all of them. But I know that it’s also tangled up in a lot of ownership things, and I don’t know if Keanu Reeves would do it again or not.”
Francis Lawrence directed the first “Constantine” film back in 2005 and there’s been talk in the past year or so of he, Reeves and others wanting to do a follow-up.
“V/H/S/85” was released on Friday on Shudder.
