Snowpiercer Reportedly Scrapped Entire Pilot From Doctor Strange Director Scott Derrickson

Scott Derrickson has been through a strange week or so. He left Marvel's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness over creative differences and now the Snowpiercer show that he was briefly attached to was just announced to be on track for release on TNT. However, that pilot he directed back in 2018 had to be completely scrapped and started again from the ground up. It was no secret that Derrickson didn't agree with the vision for the project as currently constituted, but some new reporting from The Wrap shows off just how much turnover there has been on Snowpiercer. Graeme Manson talked a little bit about what changes had to be undertaken when he became showrunner for the series.

"I think there's a little piece of a sort of a special effects set piece," Manson explained. "But it was a full rebirth of the series when I came on. I pitched a different world."

"I can't speak much to the original project because I really wasn't involved in it at all, but I was I just loved the movie," he added. "I loved that tone, I loved the energy, and I loved that it was the weirdest action movie I've ever seen. I wanted, above all else, for it to be exciting like that."

Derrickson commented back when the turmoil between the new and the old showrunners that he was really proud of the work that he and Josh Friedman put together. "The feature-length pilot I made from that script may be my best work," the director wrote. "The new showrunner has a radically different vision for the show. I am forgoing my option to direct the extreme reshoots."

Friedman was even more caustic in his comments after the firing. He took offense that Manson didn't reach out to him about the upcoming series at all.

"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 said.

He continued, "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 m*****f*****."

Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly star in Snowpiercer on TNT. The show will make its long-awaited debut on Sunday, May, 31.