Ridley Scott, 87, tells GQ that “The Dog Stars,” starring Jacob Elordi, is up next for him in April. Meanwhile, his Bee Gees biopic, “You Should Be Dancing,” will be going into production in September. That’s right, he’s shooting two new movies this year.
Apparently, the Bee Gees biopic has already been written, cast, and scouted, and was scheduled to begin shooting in early 2025. But, Scott explains that the project recently “hit a snag.”
“The deal—the studio changed the goalposts,” he says. “I said, ‘You can’t do that.’ They insisted. I said, ‘Well, I’m going to warn you, I will walk, because I will go on to the next movie.’ They didn’t believe me, and I did.”
Scott signals that it might have had to do with the contract he signed to helm the film.
“I was being asked to go too far,” he says. “And I said, ‘No. Next!’ They didn’t like my deal. So I said, I’ll move on. I’m expensive, but I’m fucking good.”
It was a few months ago that Scott claimed studio interference for the delays on his Bee Gees biopic. I’ve had my doubts about the project ever coming to fruition. It was supposed to shoot this coming February, but was suddenly delayed and Scott has now moved on to shoot “The Dog Stars.”
I’m also not entirely sure how Elordi will be able to take part in ‘Dog Stars’ since he’s supposedly booked for the first six months of the year — he’s about to go into production on Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” and will embark on “Euphoria” season 2 soon after.
As for Scott, he’s a workaholic. He refuses to slow down. Say what you will about his last few projects (“House of Gucci,” “Napoleon,” “Gladiator II”) but I figure he still has another great film left in him, or at least I hope.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.