Then I guess judging by his track record he’s not only largely a failed artist, he’s a failed businessman too.
Failed business man?
Gladiator?
Alien?
Hannibal?
-horrible film perhaps but box office success
Yes, but for every bloated big budget hit he’s had, he’s had two flops like Kingdom of Heaven, Body of Lies, 1492, White Squall, etc.
Blade Runner lol
He’s a commercials man. He makes commercials. His features just happen to be commercials for themselves and for the continuing brand of “Ridley Scott: Visionary Filmmaker”.
He’s a mug.
So when is he going to finally announce that Maximus was a replicant, too?
Coming from him, Ridley Scott’s comments represent a lot of filmmakers who dream of getting that distribution deal.
If you watched many documentaries in the past when past directors attended these classic film festivals, it was about showing your film to the world and the prestige that came after. Bare in mind, when you look at various directors in the past, there has been a considerable amount of squabble due to those who have and those who have not. Truffaut and Godard’s relationship soured because Godard wanted money to distribute his film and even asked his actors for money which pissed off Truffaut and led to end of their relationship.
Ridley Scott’s films are expensive films but its important to note that not only is he a filmmaker, he is a producer and it is his job to come up with the money for those films.
When you see a Ridley Scott film, am I correct to say that none of us look at his film as “art” but we do look at his films as Summer blockbusters or big money films.
So, I’m not really upset with Scott’s comments because for his type of films, he has to make money. If you look at his films, his goal is not to create art but to create entertainment and make the execs and the studios happy.
And take into account, a lot of film companies are just bleeding right now and they rely on directors like Ridley Scott, Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, James Cameron and others to create films that will make them a ton of money.
So, I’m not surprised by his comment at all.
Does this really surprise anyone, Scott is a lucky hack who has by accident made a couple of good films.
Would anyone happen to know what Ridley Scott’s favorite films are?
I think this is an essential postmodern divergence between the artist and the businessman: when something becomes part of the market (as movies have), the capitalist system completely subsumes them, turning them into pure commodities. I think it took a while to happen with Ridley Scott, whose Blade Runner was indeed a personal endeavor as well as a commercial one (which, to me, legitimizes calling it an “art”). However, it seems that Scott’s commercialism has completely subsumed his personal vision… or at least, his awareness of it.
Then again, the most apparently ridiculous statements are often made in response to the way a discussion is framed. Scott may have simply been responding to criticisms, explicit or implied, that his commercialism is a betrayal of the spirit of Cannes. You respond to this by saying, “What I do is not evil. What I do is simply how things get done.” Even the original Telegraph article doesn’t tell us what question spurred that remark. I get the feeling that context would change everything.
Kingdom of Heaven: Budget-$147 million Gross-$211
Body of Lies: $70/$115
I wouldn’t list these as “flops”. Good movies? No. Profitable? Yes and these numbers don’t reflect DVD/Blu Ray/ or international numbers.
In case anyone forgot: Hollywood is a business out to make money off art. Any movie is art even if it isnt any good
Whoa, regardless of HIS views, I think we can all agree that Scott (at least early Scott) is one of the most influential filmmakers of our time. Take into account:
Alien
Blade Runner
Thelma & Louise
And while they weren’t good films per se, Black Hawk Down, Hannibal, Matchstick Men, and American Gangster are by no means Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay level.
Quick point if I may:
What Scott actually says in the part of the article that is a direct quote is "*to say it’s all about pure art is nonsense; it’s about how do you sell your movie.* I don’t care if it’s a high budget or a low-budget movie, if I don’t sell it there’s no point in making it.”
He’s absolutely right about this. What you’re reacting to is whoever wrote the article interpreted this as “Ridley Scott does not believe movie making is an art,” which is not at all what he actually said. He’s saying commercial filmmaking is both an art and a business, not purely art.
@ Joseph Bridges: I take it that’s worldwide gross?
I think a break from the big-budget epics would do Scott some good and maybe take on some smaller projects. IMHO, his smallest project of the past 12 years in “Matchstick Men” is also his best work during the same timeframe.
@Matt – good call on that. Whoever wrote that blurb up there (at “behindthescenestv.net”) doesn’t understand logical equivalence: “Filmmaking is not exclusively an art” does not equal “Filmmaking is not an art at all.” It’s sad that this mistake is so common (and even used to manipulate arguments) in public discourse.
Joseph, after all of the other costs associated with film (marketing, etc), conventional understanding has it that films need to make back about triple their budgets in order to make a profit. Ridley is anomalous of big budget filmmakers in the sense that his films tend to do far better outside of North America (like Kingdom of Heaven which was a huge flop in the US and thankfully helped to kill Orlando Bloom’s career but did well overseas) but still he doesn’t really have very many hits. Consider Robin Hood which barely cracked 100 million in North America but made 200 in the rest of the world. And still Robin Hood is considered a box office disappointment since it has a $200 million dollar budget. In any event, he still has unambiguous failures like 1492, White Squall, or A Good Year. If Apple flopped as much with their products, they’d be out of business.
All he REALLY said in that interview is that the Cannes Film Festival is about little more than selling films. I wouldn’t call that a “ludicrous claim” by any means, Mastroianni.
@Ari: Failures or not, there’s no WAY Ridley Scott is not a successful businessman. He’s an excellent businessman.
And I’ll take my comments off the air.
I think a more ludicrous claim is that his Robin Hood movie is ‘What Robin Hood should be’. He tries to make his film gritty and dark then later wanders into Mel Gibson ‘The Patriot’ territory with one dimensional portrayals, eventually having a medieval woman lead troops into combat.
Maybe Ridley Scott’s movies are just a business, but saying that it’s ridiculous for anyone to make movies that aren’t going to sell well is plain stupidity. It comes off as defensiveness, like it’s an excuse for him never to aim as high as Blade Runner.
Kingdom of Heaven is vastly underrated.
Kingdom of Heaven is vastly underrated.
As usual, people just wanted it to look like Gladiator.
As for the question, I’m pretty sure his comment was in reference to production houses and not a general comment on his work… after all, he still has Blade Runner. That’s good enough.
Consider Robin Hood which barely cracked 100 million in North America but made 200 in the rest of the world. And still Robin Hood is considered a box office disappointment since it has a $200 million dollar budget.
No matter what anyone says, I’ll never believe Hollywood production houses are dying (piracy is a nice scapegoat). First off, they make enough as it is given the world-wide gross and DVD sales. Triple gains are not necessary. Even if they are “losing” money, it’s because noone is impressed by big-budget political thrillers. If Inception is any standard, the public is more interested in semi-intellectual thrillers. Get with the game, already… or even better, make better-quality lower-budget movies.
Ari, marketing is tied into a Studios budget of a film, so a $100M film already is considering the marketing as well as the production costs.
Uli, not generally, it’s not.
Wikipedia is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_budgeting
I’m reminded again of the response a comics magazine had when Kevin Smith proclaimed that the Preacher comic was “more fun than going to the movies.”
They said “yours maybe.”
Ari’s right. There may be exceptions, but generally the production budget is kept seperate from the the P&A budget, and the numbers you generally see (and, I assume, the figures Ari is quoting) are production budget figures. It’s not unheard of these days for P&A to get up around $100 million these days.
In Studio budgets it is. Whether they release that number or not, they have a number set when a film hits production.
Scott has the sourness of stephen king..never respected by serious authors…
DP
I liked Hannibal. I posted about guilty pleasure films in another thread where I gave the reasons why I enjoyed Hannibal. Alien, The Duellists and Blade Runner are great films. I thought Black Hawk Down wasn’t that bad. In fact, I enjoyed it very much. I don’t know if Kingdom of Heaven is a really great film but I guess it’s fairly decent. I have two different cuts of the film and Ridley Scott said that the 4 disc Director’s Cut that he issued was the one he wanted to be shown in the theaters. Gladiator drags a lot but the gladiator battles look fairly impressive. I don’t know if I was a big fan of Thelma and Louise, though. I guess what I am saying is that I like Ridley Scott and some of his work. I don’t know if Legend was the greatest, but I thought it was visually impressive. In fact, I think Ridley Scott, from the films I have seen of his, makes visually beautiful films and is very good technically with making films.
Mastroianni
http://behindthescenestv.net/new-releases/ridley-scott-movies-are-business-not-art-form/
Last I heard, writers, painters, and talented musicians make a living by selling their artistic creations.