Miles Teller Starring in ‘The Gorge’ for director Scott Derrickson

Miles Teller plays Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw in 'Top Gun: Maverick' from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

By any reasonable metric, both writer/director Scott Derrickson and actor Miles Teller have had a very good summer.

Derrickson might have departed Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange’ sequel a couple of years ago over creative differences about the superhero sorcerer’s next outing, but he pivoted to an adaptation of a Joe Hill short story, and ‘The Black Phone’ proved to be a big success for the director and Universal.

Starring Ethan Hawke as a masked, child-snatching terror, the horror movie (co-written with Derrickson’s regular creative partner C. Robert Cargill) earned $150 million globally off the back of a strict, Blumhouse-provided $25 million budget.

As for Teller, the Netflix thriller ‘Spiderhead’ might not have moved the needle all that much, even with Chris Hemsworth starring as a dodgy scientist experimenting on prisoners. Yet he also co-starred alongside Tom Cruise in the summer’s biggest hit, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, which crossed the $1.42 billion mark worldwide after several release date delays – which proved to be the right call.

So why wouldn’t they team up? And that’s exactly what’s happening.

Derrickson has been toying with the idea of a new project at Skydance called ‘The Gorge’ for some time now. Riding high at the top of his to-do list, he’s still been wavering since his interest was announced back in March, so the Skydance team has been quick to work with him to secure a lead.

Pictured: Jake Cannavale as Caesar, Juno Temple as Bettye McCartt and Miles Teller as Al Ruddy of the Paramount+ original series THE OFFER. Photo Cr: Nicole Wilder/Paramount+ ©2022 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

As for Teller, he was enjoying some time off after a busy promotional schedule for ‘Spiderhead’, ‘Maverick’ and Paramount+ series ‘The Offer’, but soon agreed to star for Derrickson in the new movie.

While a lot about the film remains a mystery, we do know that ‘The Gorge’ began life as a spec script by ‘The Tomorrow War’ writer Zach Dean, which Skydance bought last fall and has been developing ever since.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s best described as a high-action, genre-bending love story about two young people, who despite the corrupt and lethal world they operate in, find a soulmate in each other during a dangerous assignment.

As for what the title refers to? If you hit the dictionary, a gorge is defined as “a narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it.” That sounds a more likely setting for a high-action event movie than the other definition, “to eat a large amount greedily.”

We can more likely imagine Teller as an action hero trying to survive a wilderness adventure while falling in love than sitting at a table chowing down on food.

More details will surely follow, but it’s a fair call that Derrickson (and Cargill, who is also among the producers) have worked on the script even before Teller saw it.

Expect to hear more about casting on this one soon as it sounds like a top priority for all involved.

Ethan Hawke as The Grabber in 'The Black Phone,' directed by Scott Derrickson.