An exclusive from director Ridley Scott: among his planned upcoming films, including his Bee Gees biopic and Gladiator III, there’s a mystery sci-fi movie.
The perpetually busy Ridley Scott has recently said that he has the next three years planned out in terms of his filmmaking. First up, there’s You Should Be Dancing, his Bee Gees music biopic which should begin production in early 2025 – he previously talked to us about his plans to make a movie that captures the wider music scene of the 1960s and 70s.
Then there’s Gladiator III, which he says has already been storyboarded and at least partially written (though whether or not it’ll be partly set in a gladiatorial arena seems to be somewhat up in the air).
In our conversation with Mr Scott in September, however, another project came up which he hadn’t, at least to our knowledge, talked about publicly before.
“Science fiction next,” he said, briskly. “It’s already written.”
When we tried to press for a bit more detail, he smilingly replied, “No. But it’s a good one.”
Whether it’s another entry in the Alien or Blade Runner franchises, or something standalone like The Martian, we can only speculate; the filmmaker recently told The Hollywood Reporter that he’s developing a new Alien movie for Fox, so this could potentially be the sci-fi film he’s referring to.
Fede Alvarez is already said to be in talks to direct a sequel to his own Alien: Romulus, which came out in August. It’s possible that Scott has another, separate Alien film planned – one that either continues his own prequel series (which came to an abrupt end following the muted financials of 2017’s Alien: Covenant) or something else entirely.
Whatever Scott’s up to, it already has a script in place, and the filmmaker’s no doubt already begun working on its storyboards. Certainly, his terseness in our interview suggested that it’s secretive enough to keep quiet about.
With Scott also talking about plans for a Battle of Britain film, written by Joe Penhall, and a thriller called Bomb, written by Kevin McMullin, the veteran director evidently has enough projects to keep him busy for years to come.
You can read our full interview with Ridley Scott, and how he made Gladiator II, in the brand new, 168-page edition of Film Stories magazine. It’s available to purchase now.
