Neil Marshall came to the attention of cinemagoers with his 2002 werewolf opus Dog Soldiers (which, sadly, went straight-to-DVD in the US) and then hit the big time with 2005’s sleeper smash The Descent. Now, the Newcastle-born director has returned with Doomsday – a large scale sci-fi adventure that focuses on a plague which wipes out Scotland and, 30 years later, begins to spread to the rest of the UK. Calum Waddell caught up with Marshall to shoot the breeze about his latest big screen effort.

Doomsday has a much larger budget than your previous movies. How did you find working with a blockbuster amount of money?

Well, because it had a much bigger budget than anything I have done before I got a lot more toys to play with. (Laughs) I had camera cars and cranes and all kinds of things that I have never been able to afford before. It was fantastic and that level of freedom is a real bonus. The sort of story, and the scale of the world that had to be created, could only be done with a lot of resources. But, in saying that, we tried to use minimal amounts of CGI.

Of course you were also working with a major studio for the first time. What was that like?

It has been great. Throughout the filmmaking process I have been dealing with Rogue, which is a subsidiary of Universal, and they have been excellent to work with. They were very supportive and the freedom that they have given me to create my own movie has been remarkable. And now Universal are throwing everything but the kitchen sink to get it out there and to market it as well as possible. It is fantastic to have studio support like that.

Doomsday is a futuristic movie that takes place after Scotland has been wiped out by a plague. Do you anticipate any comparisons to the “viral horror” of 28 Days Later, The Omega Man and I Am Legend?

I think it will be unavoidably comparable to these movies. (Laughs) But it certainly was not inspired by them because, primarily, this is not a virus movie. The virus sets the scene at the beginning of the film and it is the backdrop to what goes on but it is not the main focus of the story. I did not want to make that kind of movie, and as much as some people might want to compare it to 28 Days Later that is not the case at all.

There seems to be an unspoken law in Hollywood right now that the term “virus” means zombies and anything related to some kind of viral epidemic means that. However, this is actually closer to Outbreak where it is a real virus and it kills people. The inspiration for this film came straight out of the headlines - it came out of reading about SARS and Avian Flu and stuff like that. It is set 30 years in the future and it shows us what would happen if there were survivors of a major plague. You know - how would they scavenge and thrive off what was left? I had a lot of fun with that concept and it inevitably became like Mad Max in Scotland.

Did you ever have to stop your lead bad guy Malcolm McDowell from slipping into his trademark “arch villain” mode?

Yeah, with Malcolm I wanted to make sure he didn’t slip into that. (Laughs) He is playing a villain but I wanted to try and get at something behind the madness – and with Bob Hoskins I had to stop him slipping into Roger Rabbit comedy mode because he can do something and so easily make it funny! What I wanted from Bob was something mean and moody. I wanted The Long Good Friday from him rather than Roger Rabbit. But it was not a big task to direct these guys – working with them was not difficult in the slightest bit.

Would you describe Doomsday as a gory movie?

There is a lot of gore. In fact, my make-up effects supervisor also worked on The Descent and he mentioned half way through shooting this: “You do realise there is even more blood and gore in this one?” I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah, and it takes place throughout the film.” So there are some really nasty set pieces.

In saying that, I would say that this is more of a futuristic action/adventure movie – just with some of the brutality of my earlier movies. With Doomsday I wanted to do something that was not in the horror genre, but I do not think my fans will be disappointed.

Why did you want to get away from making horror films?

Mainly because I thought I had achieved what I set out to achieve with The Descent. That was the scariest film I felt I could make – at least until I got any fresh ideas in that area. I began developing Doomsday about five years ago, so it was always on standby as it were. I wanted to branch out as a filmmaker and do something different and much bigger. I had no intention of repeating myself. That is not to say that I do not want to do more horror films, but I wanted to do something that I have not done before, and that was part of it really. And Doomsday is a crazy film with crazy ideas and characters. (Laughs) It is mad… but in a good way!

Will there be a Doomsday 2?

I wouldn’t like to put a hex on the film by saying that there will be a Doomsday 2 yet, but if this is the huge success that I would like it to be then that has certainly crossed my mind. I think that this is a universe which is wide open to explore even further, but I have various other projects that I would like to get off the ground and which I have been working on for years.

Doomsday is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9 May 2008.