Ridley Scott's team opens up about "deeply frustrating" Raised By Wolves cancelation, Gladiator II and Alien sequel

Few of today's modern genre filmmakers have had as great a run as Ridley Scott, the visionary director behind such films as Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and many more. Later this month, we'll feast our eyes on the 86-year-old director's latest masterpiece, Gladiator II, the sequel to his Oscar-winning 2000 film starring Russell Crowe. For the past several decades, Scott has been running his own production company called Scott Free, which works in tandem with 20th Century Studios and other studios to bring projects to the screen. To mark the upcoming release of Gladiator II, Scott and his team at Scott Free spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his long career, including the anticipated Gladiator sequel, which he calls “the best thing I’ve ever made.”

Starring Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn, Paul Mescal, and Pedro Pascal, Gladiator II looks poised to be a big cinema spectacle. The Roman Colosseum will be flooded to simulate a naval battle. If that doesn't sound bonkers and crazy and like something we need to see on the big screen, I don't know what does.

Gladiator II reportedly had a budget of around $250 million, which is a lot of money but sounds about right for a tentpole film of this size. Despite that, Scott somehow managed to bring everything in for less than originally planned. “Gladiator is under budget,” he proudly told THR, revealing that the production managed to save around $10 million. He didn't get into specifics about how, but I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that Scott is a seasoned pro who probably makes movies in his sleep, so he knows some tricks of the trade to keep things running smoothly. I was shocked to learn that Gladiator II only filmed for around 45 days, which is a pretty tight schedule. Another example of Scott being a master at work. And apparently, things have gone well enough with that Scott is already developing another sequel.

Plans for Raised By Wolves season 3 were already in place when it was canceled

Obviously, Gladiator II wasn't the only thing Scott and his team talked about. They also touched on his other big franchises, as well as one which is particularly close to my heart: Raised By Wolves, the weird, edgy sci-fi show which Scott Free produced for Max, about two androids trying to restart the human race on the distant planet of Kepler-22b. Raised By Wolves ran for two seasons on the streaming service before it was unceremoniously canceled in 2022, and after a cliffhanger season finale to boot.

“It was deeply frustrating,” said Scott Free's president of TV, Clayton Krueger. “We really were creatively positioned to start up. We had broken the season, we had the team together. We felt like the show really found its footing.” 

I'll second that; Raised By Wolves only improved throughout its run, and I would have loved to see it continue. There was even a concerted fan campaign to save the series, but alas, it was not enough to convince Max or any other network to pick it up.

It sounds like Scott has a pretty healthy attitude about it, though. “TV is a massive basket full of balls,” he explained. “Every now and again something comes up like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones that influences everybody, who then rushes to that ball to copy it and it’s already too late. That’s how I function as a director — what’s the next ball?”

Whatever that next ball is, I hope it fares better than Raised By Wolves.

Ridley Scott is developing another Alien sequel — could we finally get a follow-up to Alien: Covenant?

Scott and the team also talked a bit about Alien and Blade Runner, his two most iconic science fiction properties. Unlike many of Scott's other projects, Alien and Blade Runner are a bit of a sore spot for Scott Free, because they never technically secured an ownership stake in the franchises despite Scott's role in creating them. This means that every time a new Alien or Blade Runner starts development, Scott Free has to "earn its place on the team," as THR puts it.

“I should have locked them up, as [Steven] Spielberg did with Jurassic, and everything he does, and James Cameron has done with what he has,” Scott said. “I resurrected a dead Alien [franchise] with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and we should have rejoined the ownership right then, and we didn’t, because someone was careless.”

Despite this hurdle, it's a huge priority at Scott Free to keep Ridley Scott involved in any future Alien or Blade Runner films. “It would make no sense that another movie is made without Ridley and us,” said Scott Free president and COO Justin Alvarado Brown.

Fortunately, 20th Century Studios seems pretty amenable to that. The latest Alien movie was this year's Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Álvarez. That movie over-performed at the box office and was very well-received. Scott had an active hand in its production, giving notes and support to Álvarez. Scott mentioned that he's in the process of nailing down a deal for another Alien sequel with 20th Century, although he did not specify whether this is the long hoped-for sequel to Alien: Covenant, which would wrap up the story for Michael Fassbender's insane android David, or the Alien: Romulus sequel with Álvarez that we know is in the works. Either way, it'll be good to have Ridley Scott involved in future Alien movies.

For now though, the next time we can see Scott's work on the big screen is Gladiator II. It premieres in theaters on November 22.

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