Ridley Scott Talks ‘Raised By Wolves’ And The Future Of The ‘Alien’ Franchise

Ridley Scott and sci-fi go together like peanut butter and jelly. The legendary British filmmaker has returned to the genre with Raised by Wolves on HBO Max, directing the first two episodes.

“I was doing a film called The Last Duel, so I had to move on. I would definitely go back,” he enthused, hoping for a second season. “The scripts that Aaron Guzikowski wrote were an inspiration. I would be one of the producers on it anyway because my company, Scott Free Productions, is behind it, but I read the show and thought, ‘Oh my God. This is great.’ I act very intuitively, and I thought I must do one but then said I’d do two. I stayed with it afterward, in post-production, because I’m a chronic grader, so I kept my hands on all the way through.”

Guzikowski added, “This was the dream. Something this big, it’s totally execution dependent. I was thrilled that we ended up at Ridley’s company but to have him executive producing, but then he decided to direct two episodes. It was a huge relief. You hope for that, but you don’t know if that will ever happen. Raised by Wolves is hugely ambitious. It requires a lot of thinking outside of the box. You need a huge amount of experience to pull off the kind of thing we are doing, and then the time you have to do it all? I couldn’t have hoped for a better situation.”

Raised by Wolves is about two androids who are given the job or raising human children on a new planet, untouched by man. However, religion arrives in the atheistic paradise, and the differences create conflict. Creating an epic alien utopia doesn’t come cheap.

“You always complain about your budget. I think what we did for the budget we were given was inordinately a great bang for the buck,” Scott explained. “That has a lot to do with a great creative team, great control of money, and where you put your money because you can waste so much by inertia, bad decisions, and bad choices. I began my career as an art director, and I know how important that can be, so I chose an excellent one. I was a good art director, but I needed an even better one because I’m going to give him a hard time.”

“He, the line producer and I all went off location scouting. We had to shoot in South Africa because it made sense for the deal we had. We found a range of mountains that were in your face for about a kilometer, and every morning this tablecloth of cloud would come in, it would just roll over them, and I went. ‘Oh my God!’ It was surreal, it was otherworldly, so half the work was done, just by the location.”

“It made such a big difference just utilizing real locations and real stuff, so every shot didn’t require massive special effects which are time-consuming and expensive,” Guzikowski explained. “You’re still creating visually stunning stuff that feels alien, things on Earth that tickle something in our deep genetics that feel extraterrestrial. These are things that you recognize, but you don’t, and I think that’s the sweet spot.”

For screenwriter Guzikowski, who is also the showrunner for Raised by Wolves, landing in a market where epic shows such as Game of Thrones, another HBO product, have dominated, they had to provide awe in their own way.

“I think the success of something as big as this genuinely all comes down to character,” he mused. “I think if you if you’re able to bring people into the story with characters and emotion, then the dazzling of the audience is exponentially more effective, whatever it ends up being. We try to go all-in on that stuff.”

“When we do hit these set pieces and all this incredible stuff that’s going on, you’re really in it with the characters. I think that’s what makes the difference, that’s when you’re experiencing a show on a different level. I think it’s more so than saying, ‘Okay, we’ve added another $10 million shot here that will look great.’ Whatever it is, as a writer, I think it’s all about character.”

Scott added, “As a visualist, I say getting it on paper is the hardest single thing to do. Where’s the script? Where are the characters? That’s what it’s all about.”

“It’s analysis; it’s self-criticism. It’s a bit like being a writer. Great writers are usually their own great editors. In other words, the writers make the decisions, not the editor. If you’re mentally or creatively blocked, you should put it in one side and come back and revisit it. If you’re any good, suddenly, it will become very apparent. I still draw my own storyboards. I have to. My boards are literally what we eventually shoot. I’m already evolving on paper. It’s a bit like you’ve got a blank sheet of paper, and you’re going to start your book, your novel, or your article, and you don’t know what to do. The best thing to do is just stop f***ing around and start. You can always scrap it later.”

That’s an approach Scott is using in the evolution of the wildly successful and largely acclaimed Alien franchise. To date, it has grossed over $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office. The most recent installment was 2017’s Covenant, but Scott’s confirmed another film is still in the works.

“That’s in process. We went down a route to try and reinvent the wheel with Prometheus and Covenant,” he enthused. “Whether or not we go directly back to that is doubtful because Prometheus woke it up very well. But you know, you asking fundamental questions like, ‘Has the Alien himself, the facehugger, the chestburster, have they all run out of steam? Do you have to rethink the whole bloody thing and simply use the word to franchise?’ That’s always the fundamental question.”

Raised by Wolves premieres on HBO Max on Thursday, September 3, 2020.