Ridley Scott Updates Prometheus 2 And Other Sci-Fi Projects In The Works

By Rudie Obias | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

engineerAlthough Prometheus was on the disappointing side of movie-going when it released in 2012, the film turned a pretty penny for Twentieth Century Fox and director Ridley Scott. Its success convinced the movie studio to greenlight a sequel and possible trilogy, but the question surrounding Prometheus 2 is, will people show up to a theater to watch the sequel to a mediocre science fiction movie? [I give you Exhibit A – the Transformers movies. – Ed.]

While promoting his new film The Counselor on the Empire Magazine podcast, director Ridley Scott updated genre fans on his upcoming projects including Prometheus 2, Blade Runner 2, and an entirely new science fiction project. “Prometheus 2 is written,” says Scott, but he doesn’t indicate when it might start shooting. “I have already got the next two films ready to go. That will be 2014, 2015”

Scott is referring to the biblical epic Exodus, starring Christian Bale, John Turturro, Sigourney Weaver, and Joel Edgerton for 2014. The 2015 project he mentions is a film based on The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, which the 75-ear-old director calls “one of the last great science-fiction books.” Scott explains:

‘We’ve finally got a very good draft of that for Fox,’ said Scott. ‘I thought I’d left science-fiction for too long, that I had better climb back in. Prometheus was a great experience for me. Chasing number two, we can start evolving the grand idea.’

First published in 1974, “The Forever War” is about soldiers fighting an interstellar war between humanity and an alien species called the Tauran. Its themes run deep with the inhumanity of war and bureaucracy, and of psychological effects of traveling through time and space. The novel won the Nebula Award in 1975, and the Hugo and the Locus awards in 1976. The Forever War spawned two thematic sequels with Forever Peace in 1997 and Forever Free in 1999.

It will be interesting to see Scott tackle interstellar battle scenes. This is a director who delivered some of the best epic battles of this young century with Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, so just imagine what he could come up with in the setting of outer space. The Forever War could be something worth watching.

As for Blade Runner 2, the legendary director admits that he’s still working on the script, and it won’t be ready until after he finishes Exodus in 2014 and The Forever War in 2015. “Yeah, we’re working on [Blade Runner 2] right now — that will happen sooner or later,” says Scott. It would appear that Prometheus 2 will be in production for 2016, so maybe sometime after 2017 Blade Runner 2 can be thought of as Ridley Scott’s next film project.

Ridley Scott will have the next few years of his life full of science fiction. Honestly, I’d be more interested in watching a Prometheus sequel than a Blade Runner one. It’s not that I don’t like Blade Runner, I do, it’s just that Prometheus could be improved with a sequel, and the possibility of Blade Runner 2 flopping is so much greater. After all, if the sequel film opens in 2017 (at the earliest), it would be 35 years between films. That large of a time gap just doesn’t bode well.