Ridley Scott is ruining himself with flop after flop – and Hollywood isn’t helping

Adam WhiteThu, September 10, 2026 at 5:00 AM UTC

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Ridley Scott at a Paris screening of ‘The Dog Stars’ in August (Getty)

It’s never good karma to suggest someone retire. That said… Ridley Scott? You’re on watch. The 88-year-old has recently mastered the art of failing upwards, spearheading a string of creatively uninspiring blockbusters that have made audiences shrug and often lost studios millions of dollars in the process – yet he keeps going, this week claiming to be about to make his most expensive film ever with an adaptation of Treasure Island. And it’s threatening what was at one point a remarkable legacy.

Scott is, of course, one of our finest ever British exports, a filmmaker of deserved renown whose credits range from classics of unparalleled influence (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator) to movies that have developed their own rabid fandoms over the years through pure style and panache (Black Rain, The Counsellor, GI Jane). Scott has been brilliant, pushing against the perceived limitations of wide-scale, audience-pleasing filmmaking throughout his career. But in the last decade or so, Scott has tended to bounce from one artistically parched project to the next, from the dismal Gladiator II to last month’s stagnant neo-western The Dog Stars.

Scott’s occasional creative successes, too, work in spite of him lately. With their kooky line readings and Dolmio ad accents, the stars of House of Gucci (2021) seemed to think they were in a camp Eurotrash odyssey – so why was Scott’s direction so flat and stodgy? Was that same year’s brilliant tale of historic sexual violence The Last Duel – with its all-timer performance from Jodie Comer – so good because of Scott’s entirely fine, workmanlike direction? Or was it down to that elegant, perspective-hopping screenplay by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and the perennially surprising indie filmmaker Nicole Holofcener?

It’s been more than a decade since Scott made a film that was a hit with both audiences and critics alike, that being his 2015 Matt Damon vehicle The Martian. It boasted a rare lightness of touch for the typically taciturn Scott, and was the last of his movies to properly bother the major categories at the Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. (Though it ultimately won nothing.)

Despite the financial and critical disappointments of everything from 2017’s Alien: Covenant to his confused 2023 historical epic Napoleon, Scott is still being blessed with enormous budgets and huge amounts of creative freedom. His adaptation of Treasure Island – reportedly due to star Adolescence’s Owen Cooper and Hughs Jackman and Grant – will have the highest budget of his career to date. And considering Gladiator II and his Russell Crowe Robin Hood in 2010 cost around $250m each to produce (and both underperformed at the box office), that takes some doing. (The Dog Stars, meanwhile, has in two weeks grossed just $34m worldwide off a reported production budget of between $70m and $110m.)

You can see why Hollywood studios are still drawn to Scott even after all these calamities. His name, of course, carries instant global recognition, and he’s one of the few octogenarian filmmakers still eager to make proper meat-and-potatoes crowdpleasers. (Even if the crowds don’t show up.) At 88, he has none of the artistic aspirations of the 83-year-old Martin Scorsese, nor the mad-scientist flamboyance of late-career Francis Ford Coppola, 87, who financed his bizarre cod-philosophising epic Megalopolis himself back in 2023.

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Scott with his ‘Dog Stars’ leading man Jacob Elordi last month (Getty Images)

But a darker, more annoying explanation might be that Scott just works incredibly fast now – even if that comes at the expense of quality. He shoots with multiple cameras at once while watching all the resulting footage live from inside a trailer on the set, reducing shoot time and meaning fewer takes are required for his actors. Despite the sky-high budgets he’s drawing, his films are likely cheaper than they would be if any other director was involved.

But it’s not a process that is remotely typical for a filmmaker of his renown. Josh Brolin admitted that he nearly quit The Dog Stars after a single day, having been disturbed by how Scott ran the set. “Ridley was talking a lot of stories and not really rehearsing,” he said last month, “and it bugged me out, and I got really scared. I called my agent and said, ‘I want out. Something’s really wrong, and I’ve got to get the f*** out of here.’” Brolin eventually came around to the lack of rehearsal and the speed of filming, saying that The Dog Stars was ultimately “one of the more creative, satisfying projects that I’ve ever been involved with”. But The Dog Stars feels like a rough sketch of post-apocalyptic doom, devoid of charm, character and weight. It has the look and energy of something made in a hurry.

A similar issue plagued Gladiator II in 2024. Promoting it, the actor Connie Nielsen – one of the few stars of the original Gladiator to reprise her role in the sequel – explained that she couldn’t quite believe how quickly Scott now worked. “This time around, what would have taken three hours to set up 25 years ago now takes 20 minutes,” she said. But you could really tell in practice: Gladiator II’s CGI looked far poorer than its predecessor, as if it was used to cut costs and help build the world of the film rather than to enhance what was physically there on set. Likewise, lead actor Paul Mescal seemed dreadfully under-directed – it remains his one poor performance to date, lacking in the star power he otherwise has, and the gravitas required to play a rebel warrior leading an army of men to battle. Much like Jacob Elordi in The Dog Stars, he felt lost in the mishegoss of it all.

Paul Mescal in the 2024 sequel ‘Gladiator II’ (Paramount Pictures)

For the many of us who know how extraordinary Scott once was – think of the air in the face of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis as they speed off that cliff, or the tragedy of Rutger Hauer in the rain, or Sigourney Weaver versus that spiny, acid-spewing ET – it’s frustrating to see him end up this way, with leading men who seem confused by their surroundings and a presiding feeling of “we’ve hit a snag – let’s just fix it in post”.

There’s much to giggle at about Quentin Tarantino’s obsessive pledge to walk away from directing after making his 10th film, which seems to have stranded him in stasis of late (the celebrated, possibly career-best Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was his ninth, and he abruptly pulled the plug on a rumoured final film titled The Movie Critic in 2024). But it’s hard not to think of Ridley Scott’s current output when Tarantino explained his 10-film rule back in 2014.

“I don’t believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off,” he said. “I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more … if, later on, I come across a good movie, I won’t not do it just because I said I wouldn’t. But leaving them wanting more? That sounds right.”

‘The Dog Stars’ is in cinemas

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”