“Most of it Is Shit”- Legendary Director Delivers Harsh Verdict on Hollywood

Historically, Ridley Scott doesn’t have much of a filter. Currently, the same is also true. It’s one of the things we kinda love about him!

The legendary director of Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator turned up to give a talk at the BFI Southbank last week and certainly didn’t hold back when discussing the state of Hollywood’s modern movie output, slamming most of it as “shit.”

“The quantity of movies that are made today, literally globally – millions. Not thousands, millions… and most of it is shit,” he said (via Metro), adding “80% – 60% – eh, 40% is the rest, and 25% of that 40 is not bad, and 10% is pretty good, and the top 5% is great. I’m not sure about the proportion of what I’ve just said, but in the 1940s when there were maybe 300 films a year made, 70% of them were similar.”

Although the movie content machine must be fed more regularly these days in general, thanks to our copious streaming services, Scott seemed to zero in on one part of the filmmaking process that he thinks is creating more issues when it comes to bigger budget movies, remarking that “a lot of films today are saved and made more expensive by digital effects, because what they haven’t got is a great thing on paper first. Get it on paper.”

Scott has grown so weary of Hollywood’s “mediocrity,” he admits that he’s started watching his own movies instead. “Actually they’re pretty good!” he said. “And also, they don’t age.”

He added, “I watched Black Hawk [Down] the other night and I thought, ‘How in the hell did I manage to do that?’ But I think occasionally a good one will happen, [and] it’s like a relief that there’s somebody out there who’s doing a good movie.”

During the same talk, Scott also recalled working on several of his iconic movies, revealing that he was originally the studio’s sixth choice to direct Alien, behind luminaries like Robert Altman:

“[It] was pretty fraught doing Alien, actually,” he explained (via Yahoo). “Between my producers, everyone had an opinion, and I was not used to opinions. I’d been on my own boss for years. I had to literally draw the line in the sand and say, ‘Back off. Watch me do this, okay?’ And so it was not a good experience.”

The next time we’ll see a Scott-directed joint will be The Dog Stars in 2026. The movie will find Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley navigating a post-apocalyptic world, where survivors face roaming scavengers called Reapers.