Ridley Scott

Started by MacGuffin, July 08, 2003, 11:14:03 AM

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ElPandaRoyal

Am I the only one who just doesn't care anymore about what Ridley Scott does? If "American Gangster" turns out to be disappointing I'm gonna start research for a romance that proves, behind the shadow of a doubt, that someone else directed "Alien" and "Blade Runner".

Not that his recent movies are BAD, but... he's just not that great as his name sugests...
Si

Sunrise

Go ahead and start that research...and let us know what you find out!

ElPandaRoyal

They were directed by Brett Ratner...
Si

MacGuffin

Gucci film on Fox's runway
Ridley Scott to direct pic on fashion family
Source: Variety

Fox 2000 will fashion the story of the Gucci dynasty into a feature directing vehicle for Ridley Scott. Scott Free will produce with Giannina Facio.

Charles Randolph ("The Interpreter") will write the drama once the WGA strike ends.

Fox 2000 got the project after Paramount Pictures put it in turnaround. The film will chronicle the wild and glamorous story of the Gucci family in the 1970s and '80s, when its 153 shops moved $500 million in product annually.

The catalyst will be Maurizio Gucci, the grandson of founder Guccio Gucci who emerged as the unlikely winner of a bloody power struggle to run the family business. Just when Maurizio was on the verge of his greatest success -- a daring fashion show debuting the clothes of newcomer Tom Ford -- his penchant for accumulating enemies caught up with him; Maurizio was gunned down in front of his Milan apartment in 1995.

Fox 2000's "The Devil Wears Prada" exec Carla Hacken brought the project in.

Scott is in Morocco, directing "Body of Lies" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe for Warner Bros. He'll follow with the Crowe starrer "Nottingham" at Universal in March.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Scott, DiCaprio team for 'Dweller'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio will reteam for a dark thriller titled "The Low Dweller" that Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media has bought after a heated bidding war.

Scott and DiCaprio will produce the film, with DiCaprio attached to star and Scott eyeing to direct. The project has echoes of "The History of Violence" and "No Country for Old Men," is a spec from first-time writer Brad Ingelsby, a twentysomething working as an insurance salesman in Pennsylvania.

Ingelsby had been working on the script in his spare time and has yet to step foot in Hollywood. But he has hit the spec jackpot, with the project selling for $650,000 against $1.1 million.

Set in Indiana in the mid-1980s, the movie centers on a man (DiCaprio) trying to assimilate into society after he's released from jail, only to find someone from his past pursuing him to settle a score. In addition to the pursuer, a third male character and a female love interest are said to figure prominently in the script.

The spec piqued bidders across town, including Warners and Sony, who stayed in the bidding for some time before Relativity came away the winner late Wednesday night. The movie is thought to have a prestige bent a la "No Country," and those familiar with the project say they could see it being distributed by a studio or a specialty division.

Relativity, which is financing and producing the project, could package and make the movie itself or try to set it up at a studio. Ryan Kavanaugh's outfit, one of a select few entities that could compete with studios on higher-profile projects like this, counts Jim Sheridan's "Brothers" and Steve Zahn-starrer "A Perfect Getaway" among its current projects.

"Dweller" will be produced by Scott's Scott Free Prods. and DiCaprio's Appian Way as well as Ingelsby manager Brooklyn Weaver. Michael Ireland at Appian Way brought the project to the shingle.

The movie would be the second for DiCaprio and Scott. They just wrapped the geopolitical thriller "Body of Lies" for Warners. DiCaprio next reteams with another A-list director when he begins shooting Martin Scorsese's period thriller "Shutter Island" this spring. Scott is prepping "Nottingham," the Robin Hood romance with Imagine/Universal.

The project is one of the first big spec sales after the writers strike, though given Ingelsby's frosh status, he wouldn't have been affected by the labor stoppage.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

WB taps Ridley Scott for 'Kind One'
Casey Affleck to star in period noir drama
Source: Variety

Ridley Scott will direct and produce period noir drama "The Kind One" for Warner Bros.

Casey Affleck is attached to star in the film, which is based on a novel by Tom Epperson, who will pen the screenplay.

Story, set in 1930s Los Angeles, centers on an amnesiac who finds himself working for a mobster -- a killer given the nickname "the Kind One" -- and falling in love with the thug's girlfriend.

Scott and Jules Daly are producing for Scott Free; Ideaology's Sean Bailey ("Gone Baby Gone") is also producing.

"It's a world that Ridley has never touched before, so that's what drew him to the project," said Daly, who worked with Affleck when she produced "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Scott's "Body of Lies," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, is scheduled to be released by Warners in the fall.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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©brad

Quote from: MacGuffin on April 17, 2008, 01:27:38 AM"It's a world that Ridley has never touched before, so that's what drew him to the project," said Daly...

yeah because he's never touched the noir genre before, or done a movie about mobsters... :yabbse-undecided:

honestly if hollywood shut down production on all mob and serial killer movies for the rest of my movie-watching life i wouldn't blink twice.

MacGuffin

INTERVIEW: The great Ridley Scott Speaks with Eclipse by Scott Essman

Our resident Studio Plant (who hates it when I call him that), has landed a plum interview for us at Eclipse. He sits down with the great Ridley Scott. I had a chance to watch him direct a scene for the Television show Numbers last year and it was pretty surreal watching him work. He's the Executive Producer of the The Andromeda Strain. You can read Scott's fabulous interview after the break. 

QUESTION: Why did your production company decide to get involved in The Andromeda Strain?

RIDLEY SCOTT: We do quite a lot of television. There is a show called Numbers which is now in its fifth year. I think it is one of the smartest shows on television. Somehow we get away with a mathematical equation every week. There has also been The Gathering Storm with Albert Finney as Churchill, RKO 21 and we have just finished Churchill At War with Brendan Gleeson because Albert said he did not want to do Churchill again. But Brendan has turned out to be a very, very good Churchill. This year we also did The Company, which is fundamentally The Good Shepherd. So we do for television things that would not necessarily fly as a feature film. For instance why would you necessarily think that Winston Churchill would be commercial? The opinion five or six years ago was that audiences did not like history films, but now I think that is changing rapidly. We are so short of good stories that a lot stuff is now addressing history and fact is always much more stranger than fiction. I am a history buff and I love to re-examine things.

The Andromeda Strain was one of the films that got my attention way back when – as did On The Beach and The Day The Earth Stood Still, which are all classics. I think they have just re-made The Day The Earth Stood Still. So we thought that The Andromeda Strain would make a great mini-series. At one point we thought of it as a film but people were not so interested and there were contractual things with the studio. So we decided to make it as a mini-series. I have mentioned the three most interesting films – The Andromeda Strain, The Day The Earth Stood Still and On The Beach – that would address science fiction...prior to 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the films that opened the door for me. Those three films were done almost at the peak of the Cold War, so when you are talking about things like alien invasion that is clearly a metaphor for our insecurity at that particular time when we were worrying whether the Russians would come or if they would drop the bomb. That paranoia was held in place for almost 30 years.

Today The Andromeda Strain seems just as potent because there is a combination of things – what we have done to our planet and global warming. Under that massive heading there are questions about whether we have really done it or whether it is reversible or not. Then there is what have we done to ourselves politically, religiously, economically. We have really messed up in several measures...and fundamentally a lot of it is greed. So that is where my science fiction comes from because we don't watch it, very quickly we are approaching what would have been under the heading of science fiction is becoming fact. The worst will happen!

QUESTION: The timing does seem right for this version of The Andromeda Strain because it makes you think this is all possible?

RIDLEY SCOTT: Entirely and not only that, the more uncover about the environment.... At one stage I was going to something called The Ebola which would examine the 'big daddies' that suddenly come for no reason out of nowhere, descend on a community, wipe out 90 to 100 per cent, stay for a few weeks and then, inexplicably, go. I got very close to making it with Jodie Foster. I went to this place in the Carolinas called USAMRIID, which is a military facility, which is a seven-acre laboratory – SEVEN ACRES! - Which apart from anything else protects the health of the military wherever they are and also monitors world health and conditions. When something kicks in, they are usually the first out there - I bet they are circling Burma right now – waiting for some terrible outbreak of something. It is almost like a military task force of doctors, which can tell a nation that they are coming in to control the outbreak. The film's thesis was the more we rip down rain forests and disturb places that have not been touched for millions of years, we are going to uncover things that have been dormant. Ebola was a dormant thing that was believed to have come from a cave in Kenya. Also it is not irrational to believe that from time to time small particles land on Earth. Thank God they are not big ones. These particles burn up as they enter and they are tiny pieces that are probably not worth thinking about – but what kind of bacteria are they carrying?

QUESTION: There are even Biblical references when an infected soldier screams that it is the end of days. So there is a suggestion that man has ignored God's warning?

RIDLEY SCOTT: The way the Celtic nature takes me means that I tend to look towards the interesting and dark side of things and the dark side of things frequently go hand in hand with the truth. Right now I own two Prius cars and an SUV Lexus – I have no other cars – and I am gradually getting myself into the position of being sensible in every possible form because I think we may have done it! People say I am so depressing, but I am not depressing, I am being factual. And it might not be your children's children – you might see it yourself. There was a newspaper article about how a guy would look after himself and his family in a heartbeat when things suddenly change. It is simple...you go home at night in January, the worst possible time of the year, there is a storm and all the power goes out. Have you got candles? Have you got matches? No, you are going about in the dark at the entire mercy of when the lights might go back on. It is THAT simple. So I am systematically thinking about the next 20 years and beyond...making that cottage entirely solar or using wind power.

QUESTION: Michael Crichton – who wrote the original novel The Andromeda Strain – is such a prolific writer. Are you a fan of his work?

RIDLEY SCOTT: Yeah he has always got these great notions. He comes up with the key to the engine and he also has these great ideas that are closely linked with fact. He takes fact and stretches it just a little bit to make it almost fantastical. Most of the things that he has thought up are happening or will happen. I think a lot of scientists sometimes look to the very best of the best science fiction thinkers. We were talking about replicants and replication 25 years ago [in Blade Runner] and then 12 years after Blade Runner the Senate made application to genetically replicate sheep. What they wanted to do was start cloning what would be the perfect animal for consumption. So if you can replicate a sheep, you can replicate a human being. Science fiction frequently is a visionary notion that actually is probably definitely going to happen.

QUESTION: It seems that in your version of The Andromeda Strain you have kept many of the same themes that were in the Robert Wise 1971 film?

RIDLEY SCOTT: It is such a classic, so why change the engine! Mikael Salomon directed this and it is the second thing for the company. He did The Company and did that so well and so creatively that I asked him if he wanted to do this. He is now going to do a film for us. The writer is starting the script now and it is under the heading of Oceana and it deals with what we have done to the ocean and that the ocean has rights.

QUESTION: You directed Blade Runner and Alien, which are seminal science fiction films. Why have you not done more science fiction films?

RIDLEY SCOTT: I am going to do one. I waited for a book for 20 years and I have got the book. I am not going to tell you what the book is but that film is going to probably be written within the next month. That will definitely be what I do next after Nottingham, the Robin Hood film that I am doing now in England.

QUESTION: Are you working with Russell Crowe again on the Robin Hood film?

RIDLEY SCOTT: I am, I just finished with him and Leonardo di Caprio on Body Of Lies, which is now going to be called A House Of Lies. It is pretty good, I am very happy with it. In Nottingham Russell is the Robin Hood figure.

QUESTION: Your work with Russell Crowe has been brilliant.

RIDLEY SCOTT: Well it makes life a lot easier if you know each other. You can cut the crap.

QUESTION: Russell Crowe has said you are very gifted and you obviously feel the same about him?

RIDLEY SCOTT: I know that he is gifted. There are a lot of good actors out there but very few gifted ones.

QUESTION: Are you still planning to make Blood Meridian?

RIDLEY SCOTT: We got it down as a screenplay and the problem is that it is so savage. But that's what it is. If you did it properly it would be an X-certificate. But you can't apologise for the violence and you can't quantify the violence and you shouldn't try to explain the violence. It is what it is...an exercise in brutality, savagery and violence. For the most part it is probably relatively accurate. It shows the flipside to Dances With Wolves of how the United States was probably taken. It was taken by the throat.

QUESTION: Do you still manage to get home to the UK as often as you would like?

RIDLEY SCOTT: I am still what I call a UK resident. But I have done four films in North Africa so I am never here. But I do love London and that's where I am right now. But I don't get here as much as I should or could.

QUESTION: Do you have a favourite place in London?

RIDLEY SCOTT: Hampstead, I live there.

QUESTION: Why have you decided to make another film about Robin Hood?

RIDLEY SCOTT: I think it is a challenge in the sense that with a few exceptions they were never any good. So it is wide open to be made properly.

QUESTION: What were the circumstances that led you to re-cutting an extended version of Kingdom Of Heaven?

RIDLEY SCOTT: You can get gradually adjusted in a lengthy production when you start to preview it. Previews are purely a guidance system, a tool and no more than that. The danger, when you take a high budget movie and preview it and the previews are not as good as they should be, is that you start to think that the film may be too long or it's this or that...You can start to tear away what you had. It happened with me when I did Blade Runner. I think Kingdom Of Heaven was the last time it will happen because now I will not cut them. One has to be one's own critic. After all I am just about as experienced as just about anyone on the planet right now at making movies.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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©brad

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 06, 2008, 01:15:49 AMAfter all I am just about as experienced as just about anyone on the planet right now at making movies.

hah, okay.

MacGuffin

Ridley Scott's 'Nottingham' hits delay
Revisionist Robin Hood on hold
Source: Hollywood Reporter

The Sheriff of Nottingham will not be chasing Robin Hood into England's Sherwood Forest this fall.

Although "Nottingham," director Ridley Scott's revisionist take on the Robin Hood tale, had been aiming for a mid-August start date, production on the film, which is to star Russell Crowe as a sympathetic Sheriff of Nottingham, has been indefinitely postponed. A new production start date probably couldn't be set until next year.

Script concerns, location logistics and the current labor unrest all played a role in the decision.

Produced by Universal and Imagine, the film has been one of the handful of high-profile productions pushing ahead despite the labor uncertainty surrounding the current stand-off between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and SAG.

In explaining the production shutdown, Universal cited the "cloud of the SAG strike" as one of three factors that led to the postponement.

It also said that "the film's forest locations need to be green," which suggests even if other factors were to be resolved later this year, the production could not now resume until next spring.

The third key factor was the project's script by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, with a rewrite by Brian Helgeland. "The current version of the screenplay," the studio said, "is not yet where the studio and the filmmakers want it to be in terms of realizing the full value of the story.

"Universal could have moved forward with one of these challenges, but the confluence of the three caused the studio to reconsider and take the time for all conditions to be optimal."

The statement said that Universal, Imagine, Scott and Crowe all remain committed to the project.

"Nottingham" had been on track to be released Nov. 6, 2009.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

BREAKING: Russell Crowe Will Play Robin Hood AND The Sheriff In Ridley Scott's 'Nottingham'

How do you find an actor of Russell Crowe's caliber to play against him? Well, Ridley Scott seems to have found the answer: let the Oscar winner play both roles! That's right, in one of the odder casting ideas in at least a few days (it just so happens this news comes in the same week Johnny Depp signed on to play Tonto), Crowe is going to play both the sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood himself in Ridley Scott's upcoming flick, "Nottingham."

The news comes straight from the helmer himself, with Scott revealing "He's playing both!" exclusively to MTV News during an interview for his new film "Body of Lies," which co-stars Crowe. While Scott held additional details close to his chest — saying they would take too long to describe — he did exclaim that Crowe's dual roles would be "a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes."

It's certainly not news that Crowe is playing the sheriff in this revisionist take on the Robin Hood legend (i.e. maybe that dastardly sheriff wasn't the evil guy we all thought he was). He signed on a long while back for the title role. But the casting of the Robin Hood character was rumored to involve names like Christian Bale, not Crowe again.

Clearly Scott sees these two characters as two sides of the same coin, but will audiences find his method plausible? I mean, is Russell going to simply have a goatee as the sheriff and a pointy green hat as Robin to differentiate for the audience? It's certainly a daring move for Crowe and Scott who will be collaborating for the fifth time on the project.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Ridley Scott takes on 'War'
Film based on Haldeman novel 'Forever'
Source: Variety

Fox 2000 has acquired rights to Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel "The Forever War," and Ridley Scott is planning to make it into his first science fiction film since he delivered back-to-back classics with "Blade Runner" and "Alien."

Scott intended to follow those films with "The Forever War," but rights complications delayed his plans for more than two decades.

The film will be produced by Scott Free. Vince Gerardis and Ralph Vicinanza will exec produce. Their company, Created By, reps Haldeman and spent the last decade trying to get back the rights.

"I first pursued 'Forever War' 25 years ago, and the book has only grown more timely and relevant since," Scott told Daily Variety. "It's a science-fiction epic, a bit of 'The Odyssey' by way of 'Blade Runner,' built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise."

Book revolves around a soldier who battles an enemy in deep space for only a few months, only to return home to a planet he doesn't recognize some 20 years later, Scott said.

"The Forever War" rights were acquired right after publication by f/x titan Richard Edlund, who spent $400,000 of his own money and intended to make the book his directorial debut. The book became an iconic sci-fi title but Edlund, who won two Oscars — including one for visual effects on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" — never got "The Forever War" off the ground. After a Sci Fi Channel miniseries stalled, Scott became interested again and Edlund was ready to make a deal. It took six months to secure all the rights.

Scott Free and Fox 2000's Elizabeth Gabler and Rodney Ferrell will hire a writer immediately. Scott, whose "Body of Lies" was released Friday, next plans to direct "Nottingham," starring Russell Crowe. He has several other projects percolating that include the thriller "Child 44," for which Richard Price just penned a script, and "Gucci," about the internecine squabbles within the fashion family that led to the murder of Maurizio Gucci. That Fox 2000 pic has a new draft by Charles Randolph.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

'Monopoly' has electric company
Ridley Scott will direct; Pamela Pettler to write screenplay
Source: Hollywood Reporter

The Hasbro-Universal collaboration "Monopoly" is jumping a large number of spaces up the board.

The feature project has brought on Pamela Pettler to write the screenplay; She penned Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride," Gil Kenan's "Monster House" and the upcoming animated adventure "9," produced by Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

And Ridley Scott, who has been attached as a producer on "Monopoly" and has been mentioned as a possible director, is now officially attached to helm the project, with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic "Blade Runner."

In addition to Scott, Giannina Facio and Hasbro's Brian Goldner are also producing the movie, which will shape a narrative out of the iconic real-estate game. Lawrence Grey will oversee for Universal and Bennett Schneir will oversee for Hasbro.

"Monopoly" marks the latest Hasbro property to look to pass go and head to the big screen. Board games and branded properties have become more attractive as studios look to mitigate risk by finding built-in audiences.

Universal is working with Hasbro on several projects as part of a long-term development deal. Platinum Dunes is producing its feature adaptation of "Ouija Board," while the maritime classic "Battleship" is also in development. Elsewhere at Hasbro, Paramount this summer is set to release Stephen Sommers' feature based on its "G.I. Joe" character. And "Trivial Pursuit: America Plays" is now airing as a syndicated television program.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Pwaybloe


matt35mm

At first I balked, and then I realized that this could be such a great movie!!

I would have liked a chance at making this.