'Drowning in mediocrity': Sir Ridley Scott isn't impressed by modern movies
Sir Ridley Scott has taken to re-watching his old films because he thinks Hollywood is currently "drowning in mediocrity".
Sir Ridley Scott has taken to re-watching his old films because he thinks Hollywood is currently "drowning in mediocrity".
The Blade Runner filmmaker is unimpressed by the current state of the movie industry and feels it is only "occasionally" that a "good" production is released amid "millions" of "s***" ones, but he's proud that his own work has aged well.
Speaking at BFI Southbank in London on Sunday (05.10.25), he said: "The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally – millions. Not thousands, millions… and most of it is s**".
"‘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. 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."
And asked if he has a favourite comfort watch, he said: "Well, actually, right now, I’m finding mediocrity – we’re drowning in mediocrity. And so 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?'.
"But I think occasionally a good one will happen, [and] it’s like a relief that there’s somebody out there who’s doing a good movie."
The 87-year-old director believes a lot of modern movies are "saved" by special effects.
He said: "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!"
While Gladiator II wasn't released until 24 years after the original, Ridley is already making plans for Gladiator III.
He said: "The natural hook in [Gladiator II] seemed to be, what happened to the boy?
"A bit like Alien died a death after four films, and I thought, I want to resurrect the whole franchise, so I did Prometheus. The idea there was, who’s the big guy sitting in the chair? So from that you sit down at the table and start writing.
"And on Gladiator II [it was] where did he get to? Did he get lost? Did he die in the wilderness of North Africa? And so you start writing and as you write it’s like [building] a pyramid in reverse. Writing is the hardest single thing to do. If I get it on paper, it’s dead easy.
"I’m already now trying to write Gladiator 3. He’s around and he technically is the Emperor of Rome, and so I have a footprint about what I think it should be…"
He jokingly concluded: "I’m not going to tell you in case you steal it!"
