Brian Duffield, director of «Whalefall», discusses the changes from the book, the challenges of test screenings, and how the «Alien» rumors got started.

The filmmaker, recently named to The Hollywood Reporter's list of top genre filmmakers, joins Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus to discuss adapting «Whalefall».

Writer-director Brian Duffield's flow has changed.

His new emotional survival story, Whalefall, about a diver (Jay Gardiner, Austin Abrams) swallowed by a sperm whale, serves as an apt metaphor for much of Duffield's truly fascinating career, which began in 2010 when he landed a feature on the Black Your Bitch List script. The script was subsequently acquired by none other than Skydance Media CEO David Ellison and Chief Creative Officer Dana Goldberg. Duffield believes it was the duo's first feature purchase under a then-newly signed production deal with Paramount, and he remains grateful to the pair for helping launch his career.

The whale at the center of "Whalefall" is actually the "good guy."

'Whalefall' review: Austin Abrams fights to escape the digestive system of a sadistic mammal in a silly thriller that takes itself too seriously.

16 years later, Skydance is now owned by Paramount and Warner Bros., a stunning turn of events that Duffield and Goldberg acknowledged at a recent gathering.

Duffield tells The Hollywood Reporter: "My whole career started because David Ellison and Dana Goldberg bought the script for Bridesmaids. My first meeting in Hollywood was at David Ellison's hangar." I actually met Dana Goldberg for lunch a few weeks ago, and we were both like, "Look at us. This is crazy."

If there's a silver lining, Duffield's difficult experience at least comes through with a clearer sense of the warm, inviting ensemble he'd like to cultivate if he's reached the point where he's no longer handing over his written material to more experienced directors. (In 2017, Matt Schachman, before directing Fantastic Four: First Steps and WandaVision, was a strong example for Duffield when they collaborated on an unsold pilot starring up-and-coming Whale Fall actress Emily Rudd.)

In 2018, Duffield finally made his directorial debut with Spontaneous, an adaptation of Aaron Starmer's book about two high school seniors who fall in love when their senior year starts randomly and inexplicably. He even filmed a sequence that would eventually become eerily familiar to audiences, one in which hazmat-clad CDC personnel quarantine students to prevent the spread of disease and hopefully develop a cure.

Produced by Awesomeness Films, the film embarked on a tortuous journey to release after Awesomeness was acquired and eventually merged with CBS. Paramount was eventually responsible for releasing it, but outside of a limited number of pandemic-era theatrical screenings, the film was released on digital with little promotion. However, reviews were tepid and the Kathryn Langford-led film inadvertently became a covid movie, resonating with home audiences, especially younger audiences who could relate to the frustration of being left out during their formative years.

To critical acclaim, Enfield announced his directorial debut in the spring of 2021 as Caitlin Dover's Alien Invasion. 20th Century emerged victorious in a competitive position and decided to make the nearly dialogue-free film a streaming show for Hulu. The result was not only one of the best movies of 2023, but also one of the best original games of the year. Unfortunately, at the end the SAG-AFTRA strike came in and prevented Dever from evangelizing the work. However, the film made The Twentieth, especially studio head Steve Asbell, die-hard fans of Duffield.

When you hear stories of Hollywood figures DMing each other, they usually don't involve asking to read a manuscript. But that's exactly what Duffield drafted for author Daniel Krauss on his then-soon-to-be-published book, Whalefall. Duffield had just welcomed her second child, a son, and was in a post at No One's Gonna Save You when she read the gripping story, which mostly takes place inside the nightmarish interior of a sperm whale. It was this father-son flashback narrative that convinced him it should be his next film.

Duffield had another ace in the hole. Unbeknownst to him, Alan Mandelbaum, now of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment, was also bypassing Krause's scientifically accurate book. After producing No One Will Save You, Mandelbaum knew Duffield was the only candidate for the job. From there, Duffield's 20th-century champion won a fierce bidding war to distribute the picture, which Duffield and Krause collaborated on to adapt for the big screen.

In a year full of real and manufactured complaints about creative license in adaptations, Duffield had the rare advantage of working with the mind behind the original source, a writer who understood the differences between the mediums and wasn't going to handcuff the film to his novel.

"It was a wonderful process," Duffield says of his collaboration with Krauss. I joke that he is now my work husband. Daniel says that writing a screenplay uses a completely different part of your brain than writing a novel, so I don't really remember there ever being a conflict or an argument.

While Duffield was engrossed in the anatomy of a whale, his friends in the 20th century tapped him to contribute to one of their crown jewel IPs, the Alien franchise. Eventually, there were rumors of an Alien film being written, and it was assumed to be a sequel to Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus, especially after the writer-director unexpectedly left the project after finishing his sequel draft. However, Duffield sets the record straight, explaining that he only contributed two weeks of writing work to the undisclosed Alien title.

"I'm not making an alien movie," Duffield explains. I know how the rumors started, but no one has asked me to direct an Alien movie. “Required Twenty weeks helped [write], and I helped when I was doing Whalefall, because it's the same people and the same studio. So it's not something that will happen to me, but I hope they launch it soon. Those actors are great."

Duffield's praise for the "good" cast probably refers to Keeley Spani and David Johnson, the two remaining players from Romulus. However, with Ridley Scott recently teasing an Alien: Covenant during his Dog Stars press tour, perhaps Duffield did the groundwork on a take that would bring Michael Fassbender's android back into the fold.

Below, during a chat with THR, Duffield talks about protecting Abrams' Whalefall lead, the unpleasant realities of testing the film, and his two latest development projects, Siren Head and Crumble.

A well-executed title drop is always very satisfying, and you really nailed it in Whalefall. As the guy behind Jurassic Party Productions, I thought you'd want to have your own "Welcome to Jurassic Park" moment. Was this the intention?

Well, we always knew we'd have to explain the title at some point, and we're just lucky that the title gets us emotionally ahead. When you see the movie and learn what a whale is, you always remember what the definition is. It's partly because of Josh [Brolin's] performance, but it's a really beautiful idea that makes sense and resonates emotionally.

All year long, there's been plenty to complain about the creative liberties that Christopher Nolan (Odyssey), Zach Kerger (Resident Evil) and the Lantern team have taken with their respective adaptations. But you actually had the rare opportunity to write Whalefall with The Source's Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Krauss. Did he generally respond to any changes you suggested?

In all the cases you mentioned, I don't really get the complaints. They are all incredible adaptations that clearly come from a place of worship and love. I want to feel like the person doing the adaptation likes what they're adapting, and that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any changes. What Zoe [Kazan] has done with Steinbeck's East of Eden is unbelievable.

I had the benefit of having Daniel Kraus as a live and willing participant and it was the best. It was one of the first times I actually wrote with someone, and it was a wonderful process. I joke that he is now my work husband. It's still a joy when we write together, but now when we write alone, I see pages and give him notes and vice versa. We now run things by each other in a super healthy way.

Daniel loves film and very quickly, before we even started writing, realized that film, by definition, must be very foreign. The book is very internal. It's all in Jay's mind as he figures things out. You're in his inner monologue, so getting away from that was the biggest adaptation trick we had to do.

Daniel also says that writing a screenplay uses a completely different part of your brain than writing a novel, so I don't really remember there ever being a conflict or an argument. I work really hard to be the "best idea winner", and if I really think I have the best idea, I have to convince that person that it is the best idea.

We both discussed each possible change by saying, "Let's try it. Let's see if moving this scene or opening it up again changes how we feel." And every time, we'd either say, "Oh, that's better," or, "That's not as good." Part of the fun of adapting this novel is that many of the choices are already made for you, as Jay has very few options about where he can go and in what order events can happen. He is inside the first stomach and then he enters the second stomach. So there's a lot of one-liners, and then our job was to figure out when to use Mitt Brolin's flashbacks. So we're not in Jay's mind like in the novel, but we still feel like we are.

Jay does not go to university in the book. He is still in high school and runs away to a friend's house.

Yes, in the book, he starts out as a 17-year-old who hasn't left home yet.

But the film has him returning from college in Iowa, possibly as a reference to Krauss attending the University of Iowa. However, were you at all worried that Ben David Grabinski, Ben David Grabinski, would think this was a tribute to him because he also went to school in Iowa?

(Defield looks genuinely stunned.) Not at all. damn He hasn't seen the movie yet, so I didn't know he went to school in Iowa. I'm damned there's probably still time to change the cut. (Laughs.) I'm terrified of this.

People will think that your real feud is over.

I will hear about this for the rest of my life. I chose Iowa because it is landlocked and as anti-Mate as possible. That was part of it, along with the fact that my wife was born in Iowa and Daniel grew up there. Mitt tries to raise a sailor boy, but then says, "I'm moving to Iowa." So Mitt knows it's his unspoken rejection until it's finally spoken.

Why did you age Jay in the first place?

In this novel, Jay [at age 15] leaves home to live with a friend for a few years. It was to avoid his father, but a movie would take a few scenes to explain that. So we needed to grow him up a little bit, and I just loved the simplicity of this guy who thought that leaving the Central Coast for college would solve him and his problems. He thought that the distance between him and his father would be resolved naturally. He has the classic problem of the runaway young man who knows something is wrong with him and can't figure out what it is.

So he has all these ideas in his head about what he needs to do to fix the hole inside him. And with him deciding, I'm going home, do this crazy thing [finding the underwater remains], which, at least cinematically, feels like a more direct and subtle approach. Roman can spend a lot of time with his friends and explain family dynamics, but I knew that anyone who was going to see this movie was expecting a whale. So we had 10 to 15 pages to do all the characters we needed before people said, "Okay, give me the whale."

This question was probably prompted by the Noah Baumbach reference in your original script, "Your Bridesmaid Is a Slut." Of course, a squid is a likely creature for a whale to chase, but do you know if Krauss was trying to pull off a Baumbach joke by doing this provocative incident involving a squid and a whale?

It's funny because I don't remember the Noah Baumbach [bridesmaid] reference. I believe you; I just block everything very quickly. But I don't think Daniel had Baumbach's inspiration in mind for Whalefall.

It's funny, my whole career started because David Ellison and Dana Goldberg bought the script for Bridesmaids. My first meeting in Hollywood was at David Ellison's hangar, and Skydance was making True Grit at the time. I actually met Dana Goldberg for lunch a few weeks ago and we both said, "Look at us. This is crazy." But I owe them a lot and it's amazing to see what Skydance has done. I think Bridesmaids was the first script [feature] they ever bought, so you could say I made them. (Laughs.)

Zack Kerger really wanted to know whose movie made Austin Abrams suffer the most. I asked Austin about it before I saw Whalefall, but he chose both sides of the issue and decided it was Switzerland. Having seen both movies, there's no doubt that Whalefall put him in a more unbearable bush.

Yeah, I agree, I'm not proud of it, but the fact that Austin can freely move his arms and legs in Resident Evil gives me and Whalefall the edge.