2017 was a very unique year in Ridley Scott’s career. The second installment in his Alien prequel saga, Alien: Covenant, was met with great divide among critics and audiences. Those who were on the positive side of the debate praised Scott for delivering another science fiction thriller with grand style. Scott would then gather a lot of buzz with All the Money in the World. The first trailer promised a solid tale of corruption and greed, but unfortunately sexual harassment accusations against star Kevin Spacey came in one giant wave. Scott was against the entire cast and crew feeling the necessary effects that only Spacey deserved. Fans and people within the industry praised Scott’s decision to replace Spacey with Christopher Plummer and re-film all of the character’s scenes in time for the Christmas day release. The final product was still met with positive reviews. One would think that after such a big year Scott would want to take a break. Thanks to Variety, one would be proven wrong for Scott is now in talks to adapt T.A Barron’s Merlin Saga books into film for Disney.
The site claims that sources close to the negotiations strongly believe that this will indeed be Scott’s next film. T.A Barron’s Merlin books follow the adventures of the young powerful wizard before he met and would become to mentor to the famous King Arthur. Scott’s Merlin Saga is also being teased with a Sword in the Stone live adaptation from Disney. Scott has had talks with the studio on both projects. Whether he would direct the latter as well or just be a producer is still to be seen.
One would imagine that Disney might want to prioritize on the Merlin film before Sword in the Stone so Merlin can already be established as this grand sorcerer. Scott’s production company Scott Free is in talks to co-produce the film along Gil Netter. Tendo Nagenda and Foster Driver are the two producers overseeing the project from Disney. Philippa Boyens is currently attached as the writer. This is amazing not only because a female writer gets to set this soon to be big project, but because she has the right experience with screenplay credit on both the entire The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. With it just being her at the writer’s desk for now she has free range to expand the limitations of her mind.
Source: Variety
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I dunno. I’d rather they just do the Sword in the Stone books and not worry about this “prequel saga”.