Ridley Scott thinks most modern movies are “shit” and claims Hollywood is “drowning in mediocrity”

Ridley Scott has said that he thinks most movies made nowadays are “shit”, and claims Hollywood is “drowning in mediocrity”.

The acclaimed director was speaking as part of a retrospective event at the BFI Southbank in London on October 5th, where he fielded questions from the audience and gave his opinions on what he thinks the modern film industry is really like.

When being asked about the process behind many of his projects, Scott claimed that he favoured a mantra of quality over quantity, saying via World of Reel: “The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally, millions. There’s not thousands, there’s millions, and most of it is shit.”

As a result of this, the Gladiator director admitted that he has now resorted to some drastic close-to-home measures in order to enjoy movies again. “It’s a horrible thing,” he confessed, “but I’ve started to watch my own movies, and actually they’re really good! And also, they don’t age.”

Noting how “right now I’m finding mediocrity, we’re drowning in mediocrity,” Scott explained that he combats this by rewatching his own works, adding via Yahoo, “I watched Black Hawk Down the other night and I thought, ‘how the hell did I do that?’ But I think that occasionally there’s a good one that will happen, it’s like a relief that there’s somebody out there who’s doing a good movie.”

Despite one of the most prolific careers in the film business, the director clearly has no plans of slowing down anytime soon, as he has only recently wrapped on his latest movie, The Dog Stars.

The apocalyptic sci-fi, starring a major cast such as Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin, and Guy Pearce, is slated for release next year. It will mark Scott’s first return to the big screen since Gladiator II in 2024.

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