The future of film

After the weekend announcement that his new movie “Robin Hood” would open this year’s Cannes Film Festival, director Ridley Scott spoke candidly about some of the behind-the-scenes compromises that had to be made in the filmmaking process. His remarks provided an unusual glimpse into the difficult decisions directors sometimes have to make.

“Frankly, I considered just lifting footage directly from the Kevin Costner movie,” said Mr. Scott, as he sipped a glass of claret in his chateau in the south of France. “I mean, with a bit of computer enhancement, that would work just fine. Most of the work is done on computers these days anyway.”

“Of course, in the end, we knew that we couldn’t get away with that. Even if we couldn’t alter the visuals enough so that they weren’t immediately recognizable, you can bet that Warner Bros. lawyers would be all over Universal in a New York minute.”

So, what did Mr. Scott and his team decide to do in the end?

“I can’t believe that I’m telling you this,” says the filmmaker a bit sheepishly, “but we actually re-worked footage from ‘Gladiator.’ It really worked a lot better than you would expect. It saved Russell [Crowe] from having to show up for a substantial amount of location shooting, since he of course starred in both movies. And, frankly, he’s not getting any younger, so it just made sense to use footage shot when he was ten years younger.”

But how did they deal with the fact that ‘Gladiator’ was set in ancient Rome and ‘Robin Hood’ is set in medieval England?

“You realize, of course,” said Mr. Scott, “that substantial portions of both movies take place in a forest. That made it really simple. And the fact that we are doing all of this on computers allowed us to do lots of fun things that wouldn’t have been possible just a few years. For example, we were able to include Oliver Reed in a cameo. He plays a tax collector.”

Mr. Reed, the English actor who died in 1999, has not appeared in a movie since ‘Gladiator.’

Mr. Scott’s frank comments about cannibalizing footage from one film to use in another raises questions about whether he has used this practice in the past or whether he will use it in the future.

“Oh, yes, but we’re very clever about it. For instance, I defy anyone to watch ‘American Gangster’ and spot where we used footage from ‘Black Hawk Down.’ And I’m really giving the game away here, but I’ve actually figured out a way to use footage from ‘A Good Year’ in the new prequel for ‘Alien’ that I’ll be shooting. You can do so many amazing things with computers.”

And has he ever found a use for footage taken from, say, his 1985 movie ‘Legend,’ in which Tom Cruise played a young man named Jack in a magical forest? At this question, Mr. Scott’s countenance darkened considerably.

“We don’t talk about that movie,” he said sternly. “All the footage was destroyed years ago.”