Sunday 22 March 2009

Fellowship Of The Rid

Last night I had the good fortune to be present at the BFI Southbank for a Conversation With Sir Ridley Scott that marked the conclusion of a special Blade Runner Day (which included discussions, documentaries and a Q&A with Rutger Hauer).

The BFI used the occasion to bestow upon Scott a BFI Fellowship which was handed to him on stage by BFI Governor Stephen Frears who revealed that Scott had asked him to direct Thelma & Louise back in the day but, of course, he'd turned it down.

During the hour-long celebration of his career, Scott discussed his first film, Boy And Bicycle, which he made for £65 while a student at the Royal College of Art (he shot it over one summer with his younger brother Tony as star and crew), his time at the BBC working as art director and director, and his years in advertising, before breaking into Hollywood.

Scott said that he starts shooting Robin Hood a week tomorrow and has his next three films already planned, following Robin Hood with Gucci, before moving on to an adaptation of Tom Rob Smith's novel Child 44 and then his version of Joe Haldeman's science fiction book The Forever War. Scott also revealed that James Cameron had shown him some footage from Avatar and it was so amazing he was probably going to have to film Forever War in 3D.

6 comments:

Gerard said...

Darn it. The one thing he has on the cards to which I'm most eagerly looking forward doesn't even get a look-in: Brave New World.

Mark Salisbury said...

To hear Scott talk about Gucci got me really excited about it, and Child 44 is a great read.

Matt Jones said...

Nice write up-thanks for sharing Ridley's latest -

Gerard said...

I'll make a note of Child 44 - I'm completely unfamiliar...

Mark Salisbury said...

It's definitely worth picking up.

And Richard Price has written the script.

Unknown said...

oh you need to read this Original Blade Runner Ending. I think we can expect a remake in 10 years with one of these endings and/or an extra EXTRA extended original directors super collector's edition.