Ridley Scott was in town doing press for a few of the big projects he has lined up for 2017 ("Alien: Covenant" and "Blade Runner 2049"), I thought it would be one of those marketing junkets where he would try to hype up whatever he was working on, but he ended up surprising more than a few of us when asked about the current state of cinema (and superhero movies), these were a few of the snippets that I gathered:
"Cinema mainly is pretty bad ... I'm concerned for its future prospects.."
"I want to keep doing cinema and I hope it doesn't affect those of us who still keep making smart films, I'm hoping it doesn't affect me"
"I've done that kind of movie - Blade Runner really is a comic strip when you think about it, it's a dark story told in an unreal world. You could almost put Batman or Superman in that world, that atmosphere, except I'd have a f**king good story, as opposed to no story!"
The rest of the questions were about "Blade Runner 2049" and "Alien: Covenant," I'll post some of his quotes about those promising ventures in the next week or so.
Also, he went on to talk about how it is much tougher to green-light a project in 2016, with a few of his "passion" projects failing to go anywhere. I do believe him, I just can't see a film like "Kingdom of Heaven" or "Gladiator" getting greenlit today. It would just not be a smart, viable business decision for a studio, they would rather use the big budget for a safer product (sequel, reboot, superhero movie).
It's not like he hasn't been giving us great enterainment the last 15-20 years - "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down," "American Gangster," "Kingdom of Heaven," "Prometheus," and "The Martian" all have big followings and are great examples of epics that still feel like personal and intimate statements.