The ever-prolific Ridley Scott says he plans to start making his Bee Gees film in November, and elsewhere expresses doubt about directing another Alien entry.
Had negotiations gone to plan, Ridley Scott would already be in production on his Bee Gees biopic, You Should Be Dancing. A salary disagreement with Paramount saw the project shoved onto the back burner, however, and Scott has moved onto another movie – The Dog Stars, a sci-fi film starring Paul Mescal.
Scott has previously said he wants to return to the Brothers Gibb this autumn, though, and in an interview with Collider, he’s said he expects to start filming “the Bee Gees in November”. It sounds as though there’s a bit of a question mark over whether Paramount will back the project, though; when asked about it, Scott replied, “I think so. That’s what I dare say.”
Elsewhere, Scott has talked about the Alien franchise and his place in it. Talking to ScreenRant, the veteran filmmaker talked about the state of the franchise since he launched it in 1979, saying he “felt it was deadened after 4”, referring to the divisive 1997 sequel Alien Resurrection.
“I thought, ‘Fuck’, that’s the end of a franchise which should be as important as bloody Star Trek or Star Wars,’ which I think is phenomenal,” Scott said.
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Scott, of course, returned to the franchise with the 2012 prequel, Prometheus, and its 2017 sequel, Alien: Covenant. The latter didn’t quite do the numbers expected of it, however, which meant that Scott didn’t return to continue the narrative as he’d initially intended; and by the sounds of things, he never will.
“Where it’s going now, I think I’ve done enough,” he said, “and I hope it goes further.”
More recently, the Alien series has been taken up by a new generation of filmmakers. Fede Alvarez found success in cinemas with last year’s Alien: Romulus – so much so that a sequel’s in the works – while showrunner Noah Hawley has the Disney+ series Alien Earth primed for release this August. Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands, out this autumn, also has clear connections to the Alien franchise.
With all that going on, it’s hardly surprising that the director who launched it is now talking about taking a step back to an executive producer role. It’s not like he’s short of work in any case; with The Dog Stars, You Should Be Dancing and a potential Gladiator III all on his to-do list, he’ll be busy for at least a few years to come. And those are just the projects we know about.
We’ll bring you more news on Scott’s filmmaking movements – and gloriously unvarnished comments – as it comes in.
