Neil Marshall threatened to quit The Descent over suggested sexualised swimming scene

Neil Marshall threatened to quit The Descent after a suggestion was made to add a swimming scene that would sexualise the all-female cast.

The 55-year-old English filmmaker revealed that during early development, someone pitched the idea of the female cavers stumbling upon a lake and stripping off for a swim.

But Marshall was adamant he did not want to make that type of movie and was ready to walk away from his own horror film, which he also wrote.

Speaking to Empire, he said: "At one point during the development stage, someone suggested there needed to be a scene where they came upon a lake and they’d all strip off and go swimming together. I said, ‘If that’s the film you want to make, I quit.’ "That’s the kind of stuff we were dealing with. But thankfully, people backed our vision of it. That’s what we got to make, and that’s what’s stood the test of time."

Released in 2005, The Descent follows a group of adventurous women who reunite for a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains, only to find themselves trapped underground. As tensions rise between the friends, they discover they are not alone and must fight for survival against a terrifying breed of subterranean creatures known as “crawlers".

The horror hit stood out at the time for its bold use of an all-female ensemble cast, led by Shauna Macdonald as Sarah, Natalie Mendoza as Juno, Alex Reid as Beth, Saskia Mulder as Rebecca, MyAnna Buring as Sam, and Nora-Jane Noone as Holly. Marshall has often noted how rare it was for a genre film to showcase women in such central, physically demanding roles without relying on stereotypes.

The Dog Soliders director has now said he is "deeply proud" of having an all-female cast telling his story and that he never resorted to making them "six Lara Crofts", like the busty heroine from the original Tomb Raider video games.

In an interview with Empire to mark the movie's 20th anniversary, he said: "It wasn’t six Lara Crofts. It was the anti-Lara Croft, as Alex [as Beth] says so beautifully in the film. It’s another thing I’m deeply proud of, that we were way ahead of the curve on doing something like that. Even now, it’s still very rare, certainly in the horror genre, to get an all-female cast.”

The Descent was a critical and commercial success, cementing its reputation as one of the most influential horror films of the 2000s.