It’s never good karma to suggest someone retire. That said… Ridley Scott? You’re on watch. The 88-year-old has recently mastered the art of failing upwards, spearheading a string of creatively uninspiring blockbusters that have made audiences shrug and often lost studios millions of dollars in the process – yet he keeps going, this week claiming to be about to make his most expensive film ever with an adaptation of Treasure Island. And it’s threatening what was at one point a remarkable legacy.
Scott is, of course, one of our finest ever British exports, a filmmaker of deserved renown whose credits range from classics of unparalleled influence (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator) to movies that have developed their own rabid fandoms over the years through pure style and panache (Black Rain, The Counsellor, GI Jane). Scott has been brilliant, pushing against the perceived limitations of wide-scale, audience-pleasing filmmaking throughout his career. But in the last decade or so, Scott has tended to bounce from one artistically parched project to the next, from the dismal Gladiator II to last month’s stagnant neo-western The Dog Stars.
