We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Ridley
Scott to discuss his upcoming take on the Robin
Hood mythos. During the conversation, Scott addressed the status of the
long-in-development Alien prequel, as
well as his thoughts on post-converting some of his more classic films into 3D.
With regard to Alien,
Scott replied, "We're doing that now. We're on the fourth draft. It's alright;
it's really good...Of course, it'll be 3-D."
When asked if he would film the prequel using the same
technology as Avatar, Scott shook his
head, saying, "No, I think we've already moved beyond. Jim said that this
technique, which had taken them four years, he'd said that now you could do it
in two. Technology's shifting all the time. I could have converted Robin Hood. They'd said last October, I
could have squeezed it under the hammer and gotten it in as a 3-D version of Robin Hood."
Scott did, however, seem pleased at the possibility of
revisiting the Alien franchise with
more modern technology at his disposal. "Would things move faster today?" asked
the director. "Yeah. I had no technology at
all. I had no digital technology at
all. Even the ones that followed started to have tech. Like, digital rails
and tracking. I had no computers at all.
Alien was literally all physical.
Even the spaceship, which would be about as big this table, you'd hang it from
a wire and the camera would slowly push in underneath with a fan and a lot of
dry ice blowing at it to give some sense of movement.
As for his feelings on the post-conversion process and
whether he would ever considering re-treating one of his own films, Scott answered,
"Not really. I'd rather save that energy for something new. We could have done [Robin Hood] in 3D, but everyone was so
hesitant. We didn't bother because the film's good enough."
At which point Scott's long-time collaborator, Russell Crowe, offered his own perspective. "It's
not an invalid thing to do a 3D version of Gladiator,"
mused the actor. "This is one of those odd movies that doesn't happen very
much. We made that movie in 1999 and every given week that passes, it's
screening somewhere as the principle movie that night in primetime. It's one of
those movies that's lasted. I can see a theatrical 3-D release."
