The Ridley Scott movie inspired by “the best of Disney”
Although he’s made his fair share of expensive, expansive, and effects-laden blockbusters, Ridley Scott and Disney are two powerhouse cinematic entities that don’t exactly go hand-in-hand.
The Mouse House is famed for its family-friendly fare and stewardship of such monolithic subsidiaries as Walt Disney Animation, Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Lucasfilm, not to mention the procession of live-action remakes based on its back catalogue of animated classics, but Scott has never come across as the type of filmmaker who’d be up Mickey’s street.
He did discuss the possibility of directing one of the Star Wars sequels, though, but the closest he came to helming a Disney flick came in 1997’s G.I. Jane. Distributed by offshoot Buena Vista, the biggest talking point surrounding the production was star Demi Moore’s $11 million salary, which wasn’t worth the investment when the film failed to recoup its budget and won her a Golden Raspberry Award for ‘Worst Actress’.
Don’t expect Scott to be welcomed into the Disney fold, then, and don’t expect him to make a fantasy movie, either. He’s done it once, he didn’t care much for the results, and ever since then he’s kept his vow to never again return to the worlds of swords, sorcery, wizards, witches, and magical creatures.
Ironically, Scott revealed that he was approached by the studio in the off-chance he’d be interested in helming a reboot of The Inheritance Cycle literary series that had previously spat out the risible Eragon, which he rejected for the reason that “they wanted me to do a wizard film, and I don’t do wizard films.”
Starring a pre-Top Gun Tom Cruise, 1985’s Legend did boast some impressive visual effects and production design, but a troubled production severely impacted not just the finished product, but the enthusiasm of its director and star. Just like Scott, Cruise swore he’d never again return to the realms of fantasy, and he too kept his promise.
In a conversation with Wired, Scott admitted that “Legend was borrowed very much from Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and a lot of the best of Disney,” but he feels he wasn’t best prepared for the experience. “I just think I did it too early, actually,” he suggested, even though his two previous features immediately beforehand were the influential and iconic classics Alien and Blade Runner.
Scott making a fantasy epic inspired by Disney was the definition of a once-in-a-lifetime thing, then, because neither the multimedia conglomerate nor heightened realities populated by whimsical beasts and all-powerful sorcerers have ever tickled his fancy since.
Clearly, something must have gone horrendously awry on the set of Legend for both the director and future A-list megastar Cruise to go out of their way to actively avoid the genre for the rest of their lives.