Ridley Scott Has No Control Over His Most Famous Franchises

There is an idea out there that Ridley Scott is the guiding force behind the Alien and Blade Runner franchises, but that’s far from the truth. While the prolific filmmaker may have been lucky enough to work on recent iterations of the franchises, he actually has no control over either.

“I should have locked them up, as [Steven] Spielberg did with Jurassic, and everything he does, and James Cameron has done with what he has,” Scott told THR. “I resurrected a dead Alien [franchise] with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and we should have rejoined the ownership right then, and we didn’t, because someone was careless.”

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Scott was speaking about his production company Scott Free and blames his lack of control over the franchises he created on a mistake made by some of the previous leadership. At the time, however, it may have seemed strange, considering the fact that Scott hadn’t been involved. Still, that seems like a pretty big mistake considering that both Blade Runner (owned by Alcon Entertainment) and Alien (owned by 20th Century) are now prolifically huge franchises with more films and TV shows on the horizon, but Scott has been pretty lucky.

20th Century, now owned by Disney, seems to be happy handing the franchises over to Scott and his company to guide into the future, and so far, it’s paid off in big ways with hits like Alien: Romulus pulling in massive money on small budgets. The powers that be are hoping the upcoming FX’s Alien: Earth continues that trend, though they struck out big with Scott’s Napoleon last year. Meanwhile, Alcon is also happy to work with the director/producer as it gets set to release Blade Runner: 2099 on Amazon Prime, with Scott serving as an executive producer on the project.