Is Ridley Scott Back In Shape?

BY DARIAN SABLON

On October 2nd, the soon to be critically acclaimed movie, The Martian, premiered on big screens across the country. Unknowingly,  it made many critics and moviegoers wonder whether the controversial director/producer Ridley Scott, was back in prime movie-making shape.

“[It’s] an enthralling and rigorously realistic outer-space survival story in which Matt Damon plays a NASA botanist stranded on the Red Planet after a sandstorm forces his crewmates to abort mission.” Entertainment critic for Variety Peter Debruge said.

But with such a well received movie, one man has been mentioned frequently: Ridley Scott. A controversial director/producer who was well received among moviegoers at the beginning of his career, was shunned by them a few years later due to his box office failures. Many question his involvement in the The Martian, debating whether he had any true interaction in the movie or if it was basically set out and written, only needing him to be there as the “director.” But to analyze whether or not he had an instrumental role in the film, one must analyze his long career in the film industry.

Ridley’s film career first began with the movie The Duellist, a well received movie, receiving a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.5/10 on IMDb from a budget of $90,000. Yet his real claim to fame came with the absolutely terrific blockbuster hit Aliens. The story of a crew in deep space, and their horrifying experiences with a frightening creature of space gave Ridley his first well deserved Oscar nominations and Oscar win ( also receiving a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 8.5/10 on IMDb) and earning an astounding box office of around $203.6 million from a budget of $11 million . Just fresh from the success of Aliens (1979),  Scott jumped right into his next project, the famous Blade Runner (1982), the story of a dystopian future, where a man is assigned to hunt down and kill replicants, which are essentially superhumans. Though slightly polarized among critics and financially successful, the movie soon became a cult film and in the modern day received an 88% on Metacritic, 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 8.2/10 on IMDb. Sadly, it was not a box office success, making only a measly $33.8 million from a budget of $29 million. Drive forward a decade or so and find the enthralling movie Thelma and Louise, a crime drama about two amazing friends on the run for a murder, all while one falls deeply in love with a thief. Thelma and Louise was both a critical and box office hit, bringing in  a deserving six Oscar nominations and a box office of $45.4 million from a budget of only $16.5 million (although it was a success in the 90s, Thelma and Louise was slightly less well received in the modern age, a 7.4/10 on IMDb, 83% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 88% on Metacritic).

“Thelma & Louise transcends the genre; it’s about transformation and liberation that at once intensely personal and deeply political,” culture writer for The Atlantic Raina Lipstiz said. “It’s about escaping, however fantastically, the agonizing constraints of gender, class, time, and place.”

This is when many people consider, Ridley Scott transitioned into what many consider, his dark period. Right off the success of Thelma and Louise, Ridley Scott produced 1492: Conquest of Paradise, a sheer box office failure, from a budget of $47 million making only $7.1 million, a loss of almost $40 million. It was a also a critical disappointment, thoughts have slightly improved in today’s age, receiving a 6.5/10 on IMDb, 39% on Rotten Tomatoes. Then came similarly ill received movie, White Squall, a movie who with a budget of $38 million dollars, barely made over $10 million ( receiving a 6.6/10 on IMDb, 62 % on Rotten Tomatoes). Yet something , contrary to what many believe, happened: he started producing well-received movies.

With such a track record, and the making of later movies such as Gladiator , which was nominated for 12 Oscars, won 5 of them and made $457.6 million from a budget of $103 million and received a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.5/10 on IMDb and 64% on Metacritic, among others, it really puts into question if Ridley Scott was ever out of shape in the first place and if there is any need for people to wonder and question and hope. Statistically every director has made a bad movie every now and then.

The important thing is that every movie, whether good or bad, contributes to the film industry, one way or another.