Ridley Scott may have sung the praises of Fede Alvarez‘s upcoming sequel “Alien: Romulus,” but he doesn’t feel the same about “Top Gun: Maverick.” JoBlo reports that at the recent DGA Latino Summit, Alvarez said Scott was unimpressed with the sequel to his brother Tony Scott‘s 1986 original. In Scott’s words: “My brother’s was original and this is like eh.”
Alvarez brought up the anecdote when speaking about how tough Scott is on follow-ups to his films, which is something the director was afraid of regarding his “Alien” sequel. But while Scott thinks Alvarez’s film is “f*cking great,” he has a harsher take on Joseph Kosinski‘s blockbuster from last year. “I asked him about the new “Top Gun,” and he’s like ‘meh,'” Alvarez recalled. “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he was like, ‘My brother’s was original and this is like eh.’ He really respected it, but you could see how tough he was. So I was like, ‘There’s no way I win this one [with “Alien: Romulus”]’.”
But Alvarez’s comment contradict those of “Maverick” producer Jerry Bruckheimer last year to Empire. “One of the most heartwarming things I experienced is when we showed the movie to Tony’s brother, Ridley,” Bruckheimer told the magazine. “He was laudatory in his praise for the film, and the kind of care that Tom took to honour Tony throughout the movie. That was foremost in everybody’s mind.” Now it appears maybe Ridley wasn’t such a big fan of Kosinski’s follow-up, which certaily puts him in the minority. The blockbuster grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide last year, good for #2 overall on the year at the box-office and the highest-grossing pic of Tom Cruise‘s career.
One of the biggest fans of “Top Gun: Maverick”? None other than Timothée Chalamet. In a new GQ profile, Chalamet mentioned he saw the movie in theaters eight times, and even bought out an entire theater in Budapest so the cast and crew of “Dune: Part Two” could see it together on the big screen. “”Top Gun” was just hugely inspiring to me last summer when we were making “Dune,”” said the actor. “Some of the crew were kind of scoffing at going, but I just thought it was one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen.” Granted, there’s a massive age gap between Chalamet and Ridley Scott: 27 to 85, to be exact. But Scott’s always been crotchety when it comes to giving other films their due, so this is no surprise.
Still, love it or loathe it, people are still talking about “Top Gun: Maverick” almost a year and a half after its release. When’s the last time a Ridley Scott film was the kind of phenomenon Kosinski’s movie was? In terms of box office, nothing in his filmography comes close. But Scott’s latest historical epic “Napoleon,” or, ironically enough, his upcoming sequel to “Gladiator” could whip moviegoers into a frenzy in a similar way.
