Do we like Ridley Scott?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and one contested position over a decade ago, but not much active good for others to lift it higher.
Sir Ridley Scott is 88-ish and still working at a clip that would flatten blokes half his age. He was knighted in 2002 and upgraded to Knight Grand Cross in 2024, and when he picked it up he shrugged that he just does his job. That's the vibe: a working director, not a campaigner.
The Dog Stars is the fresh mess. It opened to about US$8 million in America on a reported budget of more than US$80 million, with a cast of Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin and Guy Pearce. Box office flops are a commercial problem, not a moral one, but it explains why his name is trending.
The juicier bit is the Mescal rumour. Puck reported that people close to the film said Scott blamed Paul Mescal for Gladiator II's underperformance, and PinkNews noted the claim was framed around Mescal being not masculine enough. Scott's rep told outlets it was not true, said Ridley loves Paul, and put his exit down to a clash with rehearsals for another film. It's an unproven report with a denial, so we're not hanging anything on it.
On the LGBTQ+ front, the main thing on file is the Gladiator II kiss row. Denzel Washington said a same-sex kiss had been cut; Scott told Variety it never happened and that the cast simply acted the moment. That's a dispute over what was filmed, not an attack on anyone, and nothing we found shows him campaigning against trans or gay people.
The harm check's one real mark is Exodus: Gods and Kings in 2014. When boycotters objected to white leads playing Egyptians, Scott told them to get a life and argued Hollywood wouldn't fund a US$150 million film with a non-white lead. Critics called that whitewashing; defenders said big biblical films have always cast this way. We found nothing on climate, migrants or conspiracy theories from him.
On the good-person side, he moved fast in 2017 when Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct by numerous men. Scott replaced him with Christopher Plummer in a finished film and said you can't tolerate that kind of behaviour. He can be prickly, though: he told historian Dan Snow to get a life over Napoleon's historical accuracy.