Director Ridley Scott talks about his slate of sci-fi film projects, including Blade Runner 2 and Prometheus 2...
A major filmmaking force for more than 35 years, the 76-year-old Ridley Scott still has a remarkably hectic schedule in front of him. The biblical epic Exodus: Gods And Kings is out later this year, and after that he's set to direct the sci-fi survival film The Martian, starring Matt Damon.
In what sounds like a more sophisticated updating of 1964's Robinson Crusoe On Mars, The Martian is based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, and is currently scheduled to come out in the autumn of 2015. Shooting is scheduled to begin this November, and according to a piece over on Entertainment Weekly, Scott's already finished drawing up his famous storyboards, and the locations have now been chosen.
"I think I'm going to shoot in Budapest," he reveals. "And then we'll probably shoot in Wadi Rum [the desert location he used for Exodus] for Mars. I like Radi Rum - it's the best view I've ever seen of what could be Mars."
The Martianis by no means the only genre project Scott has in the works, either. A belated sequel to Blade Runner is still high on his priority list, and he's revealed that the script, co-written by one of the original film's screenwriters, Hampton Fancher, as well as Michael Green, is now finished.
"It's written and it's damn good," Scott says, before adding that Harrison Ford will be a part of it, despite his recent injury on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII.
This still leaves the sequel to Prometheus, the script for which has also been written. How will that film fit into Scott's slate of movies? At the moment, even he's not sure. "I've got a lot of ducks in a row," he admits. One of those ducks also includes another biblical epic, this one about the Goliath-slaying exploits of King David.
Prometheus 2's release date was recently pushed back a year (it's now set to debut on the 4th March 2016) due to the sheer number of Scott's commitments. Whether Scott will stay on as producer but hand the job of directing the sequel to someone else, as has often been suggested, remains to be seen.
More Scott news as it comes in.
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