Ridley Scott Should Revive This 1980s Fantasy Movie Next

If there’s one thing Hollywood loves it’s a good comeback and Ridley Scott has directed plenty of them of late. However, there’s one particular film in the director’s back catalog that deserves a second chance.

Ridley Scott is one of the film industry’s most prolific creators. Starting his career as a director of shorts and television in 1965, Scott has gained over 200 credits on IMDb and is responsible for shepherding some of cinema’s most iconic titles to the screen. The director has been knighted by royalty twice in his home country of England and is considered one of the highest-grossing directors of all time.

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Ridley Scott Is Reviving His Old Classics

While Scott has brought plenty of original ideas to the screen, some of his most prolific work has been revived in recent years. Alien is one recent example. After the franchise lay dormant for 15 years, Scott resurrected his sci-fi world in 2012’s Prometheus, a sequel set long before the events of his first Alien movie. Scott directed one more Alien film before passing the reigns to a new director, Fede Àlvarez, to bring Alien: Romulus to life, while Scott remained a producer. The Alien franchise is only continuing to expand under Scott’s guidance with an Alien: Romulus sequel and an FX TV show also in the works.

Not that long ago, another of Scott’s sci-fi films was brought back to life in 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. Once again, a new director came forward to inject new life into the franchise, Denis Villeneuve. However, Scott still oversaw the production as an executive producer. Similar to Alien, the Blade Runner franchise is in the process of expanding into television and video games.

Scott’s latest project is another revival of one of his cinematic icons in Gladiator II. The first Gladiator film scored a Best Picture win at the Academy Awards, but after decades of silence, it was assumed the film was a one-and-done. That changed when Scott returned to direct the Gladiator sequel, and it began picking up steam with a new cast. The film will be released on November 22, 2024, and is poised to be another commercial and critical hit. Discussions of a third Gladiator film are already being had, marking another successful revival of one of Scott’s pivotal career films.

Looking at the director’s back catalog of work, there’s no shortage of films that could get the same revival treatment as the likes of Blade Runner, Alien, and Gladiator. Not all the filmmaker’s projects have an obvious direction for their future, but the timing might be right for one of his more underrated films to make a return.

Legend Deserves A Second Chance

In 1985, Ridley Scott directed his first film in the fantasy genre, titled Legend. It starred a 23-year-old Tom Cruise opposite Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s Mia Sara, and IT’sTim Curry as the villain. Legend was an original idea of Scott’s who wanted to try his hand at a fairytale and mythology-dense story. The story saw Curry’s evil Lord of Darkness seek to create an eternal night by killing the last of the unicorns, only to be stopped by a young hero named Jack (Cruise), who was desperate to save the world and Princess Lili (Sara).

Legend came out in the same era as fantasy films such as The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, and Labyrinth. It had stiff competition and was ultimately panned by critics and failed to break even at the box office. However, over the years, Legend has been one of the fantasy genre’s most underrated films and has become a cult classic among fans. Some of the movie’s strengths were its reliance on practical effects, with the film’s rich forest sets being practically built on a soundstage. Legend’s makeup is another of its highlights, with Scott recruiting The Thing’s Rob Bottin to design the special makeup effects for the characters, which resulted in some iconic designs, particularly for the Lord of Darkness.

Despite being overlooked by many at the time, Legend was a formative film in the fantasy genre at the time. It also remains one of the only fantasy films that Scott has ever directed. Fantasy is a popular genre in the 21st century thanks to franchises like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Witcher, and The Chronicles of Narnia, not to mention the immense popularity of fantasy roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. Now would be the ideal time for Scott to return to Legend, whether it be as a director or a producer overseeing its revival. Scott has evidently found success in resurrecting his old projects for the modern market. The director’s wealth of experience since Legend’s release in 1985 would only further guarantee the success of a reboot or sequel to the fantasy film.

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