The Ridley Scott movie Tony Scott didn’t like: “But he was very polite”
Filmmakers have to contend with screenwriters, stars, producers, studio executives, and audiences passing comments and judgment on their work, but they don’t necessarily have to agree. However, when Ridley Scott needed a sounding board who wouldn’t bullshit him, there was only one place he could turn.
Even though he was responsible for two of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made through Alien and Blade Runner, quickly establishing himself as a directorial force to be reckoned with, Scott knew that whenever he needed an unfiltered and unvarnished appraisal of his latest feature, brother Tony was the perfect port of call.
Put together, they’ve been responsible for an extensive catalogue of classics, box office smash hits, and awards season favourites, with the siblings adopting very different styles. Ridley was the more classical, structured, and epic of the two, whereas Scott helped usher in a new era of action-orientated filmmaking with his propulsive and dizzying style.
While they wouldn’t be brazen enough to openly trash each other’s work – something of a surprise given Ridley’s famously curmudgeonly disposition – the shorthand between them was such that the oldest of the pair always knew immediately when Tony wasn’t particularly enthused with what he was putting together either on set or post-production.
They did at least have common ground, though, because Ridley wasn’t even a fan of the movie Tony didn’t care for. In fact, it was such a nightmare from beginning to end that the Gladiator and Thelma & Louise director swore he’d never even work in the same genre again, and he’s stuck to those guns for the last four decades.
“He’s the only one I’d show the film to,” Ridley said to The Guardian of his process. “I’d say, ‘What do you think of this?’. And he’s go, ‘Make it shorter’. And I’d go, ‘Oh, OK’. So it means he didn’t like it. I always remember showing him Legend and I thought, ‘What am I going to do with Legend?’. It wasn’t his thing at all, but he was very polite, which means he really didn’t like it.”
A box office bomb that was hacked down in the editing suite from 114 minutes to a breezy 89, Legend also had to contend with a fire raging through Pinewood Studios just ten days before the end of production. It was an ominous sign that the film wasn’t going to emerge on the other side smelling of roses and that the Scott brothers weren’t the only ones to distance themselves from the production.
Much like Scott swore he’d never helm another fantasy flick again, star Tom Cruise was adamant he’d never lend his name to swords and sorcery for as long as he lived. Something must have gone seriously awry for the director and leading man to dedicate the next 40 years of their careers to avoiding the genre at all costs, with Tony’s dismissive assessment the least of its concerns.
