Sinister and Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson has declined to return for reshoots on TNT's Snowpiercer TV adaptation because of new showrunner Graeme Manson's "radically different" vision, THR reports.
Derrickson directed the initial pilot episode scripted by Josh Friedman, calling the 72-page script "the best I've ever read" in a tweet published Friday.
"The feature-length pilot I made from that script may be my best work," Derrickson wrote. "The new showrunner has a radically different vision for the show. I am forgoing my option to direct the extreme reshoots."
In a subsequent tweet, Derrickson wrote "You won't" in response to a fan expressing their excitement in seeing the project. "Not what I made anyway," Derrickson wrote in yet another tweet.
"Your cut from @Josh_Friedman's script was astonishing," commented Logan and Blade Runner 2049 screenwriter Michael Green. "A network that unraveled a vision so powerful will not go far."
TNT tapped Manson as the new showrunner four months ago after Friedman (Sarah Connor Chronicles, War of the Worlds) developed the drama, inspired by the 2013 Bong Joon-ho-directed Korean film that starred Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton.
Friedman put the project into development in 2015 and Snowpiercer was picked up to pilot by TNT in November 2016. In January, TNT picked it up to series — without Friedman.
"I didn't 'exit' over creative differences," Friedman wrote on Twitter in February. "TNT insisted that I be removed from show running duties because they didn't think I'd be [compliant]. Hopefully they found someone more to their liking."
Orphan Black co-creator Graeme Manson was brought on as showrunner that same month, and three months later, Manson was the subject of scathing tweets published by Friedman over his failure to touch base with Friedman concerning Snowpiercer's new direction.
"If you're asked to rewrite someone or take over their show it seems like good sense and good karma to reach out to that person first and a) find out what the circumstances of their departure are and b) thank them for doing the work you'll be profiting from," Friedman wrote.
"You should buy that person a nice meal or a bottle of alcohol if they're up for it. Your money was earmarked for them at one time. And more than likely, what may be a good job for you was a passion project for them. Put it another way: if you were to take over a show I'd originated and worked on for two years and didn't reach out to me before taking the job you're either an idiot, a coward, or a vichy motherf—ker."
David Diggs, Jennifer Connelly, and Alison Wright star in the series, which depicts the world seven years after its ruination as a bitter, frozen wasteland. The remnants of humanity now inhabit a perpetually-moving train that travels the globe as the series explores class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival.
Derrickson is expected to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the director of Doctor Strange 2, which Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently confirmed will be happening sometime after 2019.