Sir Ridley Scott believes that most of the movies being made right now are “sh-t.”
The “Blade Runner,” “Alien” and “Gladiator” director participated in a career retrospective conversation Sunday at the BFI Southbank theater in London. While the subject on hand was his own, past achievements and films, though, that did not stop Scott from offering a characteristically blunt assessment of the current state of the entertainment industry.
“The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally: millions. Not thousands, millions,” Scott said of the greater number of films that are released every year. “Most of it is sh-t.” As for why he thinks so, the filmmaker offered at one point in the conversation, “I think a lot of films today are saved and made more expensive by digital effects because what they haven’t got is a great thing on paper first. Get it on paper!”
“80% — 60% — eh, 40% is the rest, and 25% of that 40% is not bad, and 10% is pretty good, and the top 5% is great,” Scott explained, adding, “I’m not sure about the proportion of what I’ve just said, but in the 1940s when there were maybe 300 films a year made, 70% of them were similar.”
Scott went one step further, going so far as to say that audiences, himself included, can’t escape mediocrity nowadays. “We’re drowning in mediocrity,” the director proclaimed, before revealing the unorthodox solution he has come up with to deal with it. “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.”
“I watched ‘Black Hawk [Down]’ the other night and I thought, ‘How in the hell did I manage to do that?’” Scott explained. “I think occasionally a good one will happen, [and] t’s like a relief that there’s somebody out there who’s doing a good movie.”
In case anyone was wondering, though, Scott’s poor view of the entertainment industry’s modern output has done nothing to dim his own enthusiasm for filmmaking. “I ain’t going to retire,” the director told those in attendance Sunday. “I’m already now trying to write ‘Gladiator 3.’”
When asked what advice he would offer younger, up-and-coming filmmakers, Scott added, “Be relentless, don’t listen to any advice, be an absolute jerk.”
