Ridley Scott may have just turned 84 years old, and he’s clearly becoming more curmudgeonly with age if his recent interactions with the press are anything to go by, but he still retains his well-earned reputation as one of the most economical filmmakers in the business.
Despite regularly working with budgets in excess of $100 million that require vast practical sets and intensive post-production work, the filmmaker always delivers his projects on time and on budget. That’s even more remarkable when you consider he’s delivered sixteen features in the last 20 years, and that’s with a four-year gap between All the Money in the World and The Last Duel.
In an interview with The Playlist, The Last Duel star and fellow director Ben Affleck explained how Scott manages to get his movies in the can so quickly, despite all of the moving parts required.
“If you block it in an intelligent way and you have good operators, which is what Ridley can do, and you have great production design and good actors, you can use five cameras, which is what Ridley does, five or six cameras at once. And shoot a three-page scene around a dinner table in three hours.”
Scott isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, either, with Napoleon biopic Kitbag gearing up to shoot with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role, before he focuses his attention on the long-gestating Gladiator sequel. That’s another pair of big budget historical epics, but we can guarantee they’ll be arriving right on schedule and without an extra penny spent.