Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: damon lindelof, prometheus
Rumour: The Revolving Door On The Prometheus Sequel
Alasdair Stuart writes;
Oh, Prometheus. We just can't seem to quit you. Last year's occasionally brilliant, frequently crushingly muddle-headed Beyond The Mountains of Madness In Space movie split audiences, if not down the middle, then certainly off to one side. On the larger side were people who thought it was either bad or unwatchably stupid. On the smaller side were people who thought it was a towering work of heartbreaking genius.
I'm kind of half and half. Or third and two thirds. The thing looks beautiful, and there are some great ideas in there but the execution is fluffed early and pretty much stays fluffed throughout. An awful lot of the blame for that was, and still is, being laid at the door of Damon Lindelof for that and this article is no exception. Bloody Disgusting say;
"Lindelof transformed Prometheus into a "trilogy", thus stripping the first film's conclusion of any meaning and setting Ridley and Fox up for disaster. This disaster was perpetuated when Lindelof announced he wouldn't be penning the sequel. So, in short, guy who convinced the filmmakers to make a trilogy, left them in the dust…"
And go on to say the studio is now panicking to the extent that the sequel is being offered to, and again this is a quote;
'… basically anyone who can crack the story.'
Which is interesting but troubling for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the idea of a scriptwriter, even one with the resume that Lindelof has, being able to convince the studio to expand the movie out into a trilogy seems a little…unlikely? Ambitious? Predicated on a lot of executives really liking the ending of Lost? Whilst I'm not denying Lindelof's script had serious problems, the simple truth of the matter is it takes two to yell 'Action!' on a scene where a trained scientist pokes a completely unknown alien lifeform for no good reason until it kills him. Scott was in charge of this movie and the buck, like it or not, reputation or not, doesn't just stop with Lindelof, especially given how immensely hands-on and, at times, near improvisational, Scott was reported as being with every part of the process. Also troubling, but less so is this question;
If a revolving door has been installed on the Prometheus 2 script, where are the writers who've been turned down? Why aren't they talking about it? NDAs are certainly a possibility but given the pasting the first movie got, you'd think if they were offering it to heavy hitters and they'd turn it down, surely some of them would be talking? Regardless, the article seems very confident we'll see a Prometheus 2. Given how much Scott's working on right now, I'm less confident but it's always nice to speculate.
(Also, top marks to both First Showing for the initial find, and Bloody Disgusting for finding a spin on the 'In space no one can hear you scream' gag I've genuinely never seen before.