Concluding our string of interviews for Ridley Scott’s The Martian, we also got to sit down with screenwriter Drew Goddard to talk about adapting Andy Weir’s novel into full-fledged feature film.
Formerly a writer on shows like Alias and Lost, Goddard is probably best known for co-writing and directing the horror-comedy The Cabin in the Woods and writing Cloverfield, and more recently, he’s been involved with writing and producing Netflix’s “Daredevil.” But Goddard’s name has also been mentioned for numerous other projects, including Sony’s planned Sinister Six movie (and also for the Spider-Man gig which went to Jon Watts). Besides adapting The Martian, he was also involved with the adaptation of Max Brooks’ World War Z and the long-in-development Robopocalypse.
When ComingSoon.net spoke with Goddard, we didn’t get too much into his other projects and mainly spoke to him about his latest film.
ComingSoon.net: First of all, I’m curious about the timeframe of the movie. Obviously, Andy Weir’s book came out in 2011, but then since the book came out and since the movie came out, it’s been all these other movies like “Gravity,” so all these kind of interesting looks at space exploration. Were you actually already in the writing stage at that point?
Drew Goddard: Yeah, it was a very strange situation, where I read the book I believe February of 2013. I may have my dates wrong, and I fell in love with it. I know I turned the first draft of the script in the day “Gravity” opened. So we definitely had that feeling of, “Oh, is this going to kill us?” Because we haven’t seen “Gravity.” We didn’t know. Then I think “Gravity” did really well, which helped the studio say, “Oh wait, space can make money,” which is good. So I think in that regard, it helped us. Then we saw the movie and I loved it, but I thought we were just a very different movie. So it sort of felt good. Then the next year, I think we started production the day “Interstellar” opened. [Laughs] We went through that same thing again, where we thought, “Uh oh.” But I’ve sort of learned in Hollywood, whatever you’re working on, you’ll hear about three other projects that sound very similar, and if you worry about it too much, you’ll never get anything done, so you just have to put your head down and concentrate on making it unique.
CS: So when “Gravity” came out, did it really affect what you were doing or did it feel like you wanted to get away from what that was? It’s also a person stranded in space so it’s similar in some ways.
Goddard: I think that’s right, but I think this book is just so different. It’s what attracted me to it in the first place. It really had its own voice and life and there’s some cosmetic similarities about a person stranded in space, but I felt like this was very different. At the end of the day, to me, it’s just a movie about scientists, and scientists taking care of one another and trying to solve problems. It just felt like, “Okay, if we hinge on that, we’ll be okay.”
Goddard: I mean, luckily, Andy is so smart and the book is so well-researched that he was always my resource. I grew up around scientists. I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which is just a town of scientists. I think that was one of the reasons I sparked to the work, because I thought, “Oh, I’ve never actually heard someone capture scientists the way Andy has captured them.” It sounded like the scientists talked in my town. So my job as a screenwriter was less about getting the actual science right, because I trusted Andy. I mean, he’s the smart one. But my job was to just make sure that they sounded the way I thought scientists should sound, if that makes sense.
CS: A town of scientists. Boy, they must have some great parties there.
Goddard: Oh, I know. No, it’s funny because it’s got one of the highest IQs per capita, but also one of the highest concentrations of churches per capita, when normally those two stats don’t go the same way. It’s because they’re all making weapons, and so, there’s so much guilt. It’s a very strange town.
CS: This is a good transition to my next question, because one of the things about the movie that really clicks with audiences is the humor, which is something that you would not expect in a movie about a guy stranded in space, possibly going to die any day. It really has a lot of humor in it. Is there a lot of that in the book or did you want to add that to the movie?
Goddard: I think it’s both. I mean, the book is really funny, and it’s one of the things, again, like in my first conversation with Andy, I said, “The thing I love most about this, I’ve never heard scientists captured..,” I don’t want to say correctly, but, to capture the way he captured them. I told him that I grew up in Los Alamos, and he said, “Oh, I used to work for Sandia Lab, which is the same lab that oversees… “ Yeah, so there was a real connection between Andy and I. But I’ve found that scientists are funny. We never quite see that in cinema. I think there’s this tendency to make them very stuffed shirt and they’ve got their slide rule, and sort of the opposite is true. There’s a much more sort of gallows humor about it that comes along with this that I’ve really adored, and it was in the book. And then one of the fun parts of screenwriting is you get to make your own silly jokes and add them in there.
CS: It seems that whenever a writer starts directing their own work, they realize, “Hey, I don’t want to keep handing my screenplay to someone else to director” But in this case, the director taking your script is Ridley Scott, so can you talk about that transition in handing over the screenplay?
Goddard: Absolutely. It’s fun because I feel like I remember right before I directed, I had sat down with Guillermo del Toro, and he had said to me, “Well, whatever happens, it’ll make you a better screenwriter.” I knew it in my head that was probably true, but then once you go through it, it’s absolutely right because you just look at how to craft these things differently. I think I still enjoy that side of it. They’re two different jobs. So it’s like I get to play dress up and today I’m a screenwriter and tomorrow, I’m a director. When you have someone like Ridley, it’s like I get to work with my idols, so you’re not going to hear me complain.
CS: What’s going on with your own directing? I know for a while there was talk about you maybe doing “Spider-Man 3.” Is it something where you’re going out and finding other scripts or do you want to start writing your own?
Goddard: That’s what I’m doing now, is just writing my next thing. The good news is, I’ve learned in my life not to think too far ahead. I just sort of go in six month periods and say, “Okay, this is going to be ‘The Martian’ period and this is going to be the ‘Daredevil’ period, and oh, this is going to be my next project.” So that’s what I’m doing now.
CS: Are you good at multitasking or not so much?
Goddard: No, I’m terrible. [Laughs] It’s taken a while to realize that, but I’m much happier when I can just focus on one thing at a time.
CS: I’m impressed by Ridley, because I feel like he always has stuff in development, then all of a sudden he says “I’m going to direct ‘The Martian,” and he does. He can do pretty much whatever he wants. He could turn on a dime and focus on something else and then turn out something amazing.
Goddard: I’ve never seen anything like it. I think he’s so comfortable shooting, so he just wants to go, go, go all the time, and he’s got more energy than I’ve ever had in my life, and you know, I hope I have half his energy at his age. I don’t know how he does it.
CS: So what are you actually working on right now? “The Martian” has been done for a while.
Goddard: Yeah, I’m just writing my next script. My hope is to be done with it by the end of the year, and then we’ll see if I can trick someone into giving me enough money to make it.
CS: Have you also had other scripts that you’ve been working over the years and sending those out?
Goddard:, I’ve been pretty lucky in most of the stuff that I’ve done gets made, so I’ve sort of found that anything I was interested in five years ago, I’m not interested in anymore, particularly when it comes to directing. You know, directing is so tricky because you’re essentially devoting two years of your life to only this. So I’ve found I really have to care, you know? It’s a luxury because I can still pay the bills being a screenwriter, so with directing, I only do it if I am so passionate about it I can’t do anything else.
CS: You were delving into the Marvel world between “Daredevil” and playing in the “Spider-Man” universe, so are you still interested in working on other properties? Are you a big comic book fan?
Goddard: I was very much so, a kid that sort of painted his walls with Spider-Man l love that stuff, so that’s fun, you know? It’s a whole other side of your personality, where you get indulge that for a while.
CS: How do you balance “Okay, I’m going to take on one of these characters I love” and “But I don’t want to screw it up or everyone’s going to hate me.”
Goddard: You know what? It’s the same thing with “The Martian,” where you just trust that you love it. That’s the rule. I try not to do things I don’t love because if you love it, you trust that that will come through in the work, that yes, I may change something about a character, and “Daredevil” may be a little different than you had him in your head, but you’ll know that I love him, and so, hopefully, you’ll trust that he’s in good hands. I don’t know how else to do it.
CS: That makes some sense. But I have to say that there are a lot of things I love, but I would never want to touch them, because I wouldn’t want to be known as the guy who ruined something I love.
Goddard: It’s a little scary. It’s a little scary. No, there’s moments where I have to have my close friends and family talk me off the wall because, “What am I doing?” But then they just say, “No, look, you love this. Just go for it.” That was definitely this book, because this book was very much like a leap of faith. It was not something that on a cosmetic level, that people you would think, “Oh, a studio’s going to make a movie set on Mars,” for instance? That’s not what they’re looking to do.
CS: “John Carter” couldn’t even be “of Mars.”
Goddard: Right, I know. That’s right. Then you sort of had this weird momentum against it, and it’s a movie where your main character is by himself farming in his own feces. On a basic level, it’s not the obvious home run and the studio deserves a lot of credit for taking that leap of faith, for sure.
CS: I think when I saw the footage at CinemaCon, I think that the first time I realized, “Okay, this is going to be something really cool and interesting.”
Goddard: Yeah, we could feel the momentum pick up right then, too. That footage was great. It turns out that Ridley Scott knows what he’s doing. [Laughs]
CS: Believe me, I’m not just Ridley Scott fan, I’m almost an apologist. I sometimes have to feel like I have to explain, “Okay, listen. I love these movies because I love Ridley and anything he does.”
Goddard: That’s right. As am I.
CS: We spoke about these other movies in this new wave of space exploration and space travel movies. I’m really hoping that NASA will really go back and get funding for more space travel. Is that one of the things you think this movie will hopefully do or help with?
Goddard: You know, if it was up to me, that’s what I would want it to do. That was a goal, to sort of say like, “No, we love NASA. We love JPL. These guys are doing incredible things and this is sort of their struggle for advancement mirrors our own and we need to keep flying.”
CS: It feels like there’s still a lot of world out there to explore.
Goddard: There’s still a lot out there. I think it sorta goes in cycles, you know? I think we’re just at a time again where we’re ready to start looking up as a culture and say, “Okay, let’s.” Sometimes we have to get a little more inward in how we look, and it felt like, okay. Now, I don’t know. This maybe just me and my perception, but I feel like the world is ready to start looking at the sky again.
CS: It’s interesting, because none of the actors I spoke to who were playing astronauts in the movie wanted to actually go to space.
Goddard: It’s a little scary.
CS: I think that’s amazing because you see a movie like this and it really glamorizes space travel, at least the good parts, and yet, no one wants to do it themselves.
Goddard: No, it’s funny. Doing the research and seeing all the old—you can go to JPL and NASA and see the old capsules and the modules that they were in, and you’re like, “This is just a tin can. Men were up here. We sent people up in this?” It’s terrifying, the amount of courage that you need to do such a thing.
The Martian will open nationwide on Friday, October 2 with previews on Thursday night.
