Paradise Lost

In 2008, director Scott Derrickson was working on a big-screen adaptation of John Milton’s epic 17th-century literary poem and masterpiece, Paradise Lost. The movie, sadly, never saw the light of day, and all that can be found online are various concepts of the angel and star of the show in his various forms: Angel Lucifer, Rebel Lucifer, Fallen Lucifer and Satan.

Derrickson has this to say abut the film:

“What’s interesting to me is that you cannot help but feel that his initial feelings of being disgruntled are merited, and I feel a lot of empathy for the Lucifer character in the beginning of the story. I would want the audience to be sympathetic with him at the beginning, and what happens — what he’s up against and what he’s wrestling and struggling with — you certainly feel that. In the movie, Satan goes from being a completely good being [an angel] to becoming the most heinous kind of evil, and you really have a hard time knowing exactly where he crossed that line because you were with him. What is interesting about that story, in the way Milton laid it out, is that people jump off with him at different points and some never at all. Properly done, it’s a story that tells readers a lot about themselves. You have to respect that Milton created the first anti-hero with that poem, and certainly this was preserved in the script. At what point does love turn to jealousy, jealousy turn into hate and hate into evil? The screenplay takes aspects of the entire arc. What it encompasses is still a fraction of the poem and has to be, because you could make a 50-hour miniseries out of it if you wanted to. But it really covers end to end the basic events of the poem.”