Acclaimed filmmaker Ridley Scott has offered a withering take on the current state of Hollywood.
The Oscar-nominated Gladiator director, 87, was speaking Sunday at the BFI London Film Festival.
“The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally — millions. Not thousands, millions… and most of it is s***,” Scott remarked. He lamented about how films nowadays are too often “saved” by digital effects because they haven’t had a “great thing on paper first.”
When asked if he had a go-to comfort movie, the British director admitted: “Well, actually, right now, I’m finding mediocrity — we’re drowning in mediocrity. And so what I do — it’s a horrible thing — but I’ve started watching my own movies, and actually they’re pretty good! And also, they don’t age.”
Noting his recent rewatch of his 2001 war-action drama Black Hawk Down, starring Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, and Ewan McGregor, Scott remembered thinking, “How in the hell did I manage to do that?”
“But I think occasionally a good one will happen,” he added, “[and] it’s like a relief that there’s somebody out there who’s doing a good movie.”
Elsewhere during the panel, he revealed he has no plans to retire anytime soon. “To me, the vineyard would be my retirement occupation,” he said of his French vineyard, “but I ain’t gonna retire.”
In a 2021 interview with The Independent, he opened up about his filmmaking philosophy, saying that “to me, my job is not work. It’s a passion.”
“It’s just ‘next’ and I just move on,” he said of his nonstop workflow. “We tend to work 18 months ahead. Otherwise, you have these horrible gaps. You finish the movie, and if you haven’t thought what else you’re gonna do next … you’re hoping something good’s gonna land on your desk. It never does.”
Scott’s latest movie was the long-awaited Gladiator sequel. Released in 2024, more than two decades after the first, Gladiator II saw Paul Mescal lead as Lucius, the son of Russell Crowe’s slain Roman soldier Maximus. Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, and Denzel Washington also starred.
He’s since also directed the debut episode of Apple TV+’s mini-drama Dope Thief.
As for upcoming releases, he has his Jacob Elordi-led post-apocalyptic drama The Dog Stars, adapted from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel of the same name, coming out in 2026.
Meanwhile, according to IMDb, Scott has seven other directing projects in pre-production and development, including the Western drama Wraiths of the Broken Land, a biopic of wartime photographer Lynsey Addario, It’s What I Do, and an adaptation of Paulette Jiles’s 2009 novel The Color of Lightning.
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