Ridley Scott Slams Superhero Movies: ‘Boring as Sh*t’ with Scripts That ‘Aren’t Any F*cking Good’
Zack Sharf
Ask Ridley Scott what he thinks of superhero movies and he won’t sugarcoat it. “The best films are driven by the characters, and we’ll come to superheroes after this if you want, because I’ll crush it. I’ll fucking crush it. They’re fucking boring as shit,” Scott recently told Deadline in an interview that has since drawn the ire of Marvel Cinematic Universe fans and comic book movie lovers on social media, adding, “[Superhero movie] scripts are not any fucking good.”
By his account, Scott has made “three great scripted superhero movies…One would be ‘Alien’ with Sigourney Weaver. One would be fucking ‘Gladiator,’ and one would be Harrison Ford [in ‘Blade Runner’]. They’re superhero movies. So, why don’t the superhero movies have better stories? Sorry. I got off the rail, but I mean, come on. [Superhero movies] are mostly saved by special effects, and that’s becoming boring for everyone who works with special effects, if you’ve got the money.”
Scott is often frank while discussing present-day Hollywood. The director made headlines in October for shading FX’s upcoming television adaptation of his beloved “Alien” film franchise. “Fargo” and “Legion” showrunner Noah Hawley is behind the adaptation, which will bring the “Alien” series to Earth for the first time. Scott’s famed protagonist Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is not involved in the story.
“Wherever [the television series goes], whatever they do, it’ll never be as good as the first one,” Scott said at the time. “That’s what I’ll say.”
Scott directed two films this year, “The Last Duel” and the upcoming “House of Gucci,” both of which have Oscar buzz. Next up for the director are “Kitbag,” a Napoleon epic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jodie Comer, and a sequel to his Oscar-winning “Gladiator.” The sequel is being written now so that production can begin immediately after “Kitbag,” which will dive into the relationship between the French emperor and his obsession with wife Joséphine de Beauharnais.
“The thing that really makes Napoleon tick is, why was he in so much need of Josephine?” Scott told Empire about the Napoleon movie. “There was a need for each other. And we think we’ve pinpointed what that was.”
With these projects taking up Scott’s foreseeable future, don’t expect any traditional superhero movies out of the filmmaking icon just yet.
