Ridley Scott has been working in film and television for 40 years, but he says there have only been two times when a \u201creally great\u201d script landed on his desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first one was \u2018Alien,\u2019\u201d Scott says. \u201cFive other directors had passed on it because of the violence and the creature popping out of the guy\u2019s chest. But I read it, and I knew how to do it. Sometimes it just comes down to how you see things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second ready-to-go screenplay? \u201cThe Martian.\u201d Drew Goddard, who wrote \u201cCloverfield\u201d and directed \u201cThe Cabin in the Woods,\u201d had already spent months adapting Andy Weir\u2019s best-selling novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars into a film that he intended to direct himself.<\/p>\n
But then came the opportunity to direct \u201cThe Sinister Six,\u201d a Spider-Man spin-off that would eventually implode. Still, Goddard, a comic-book fan who was the executive producer on the Netflix series \u201cDaredevil,\u201d opted for the opportunity to get into the Marvel Comics business and sent his script for \u201cThe Martian\u201d into the Hollywood pipeline, hoping it would find a good home.<\/p>\n
\u201cRidley was the perfect person,\u201d Goddard says. \u201cBefore I met him, I had the impression he\u2019d be this sort of stern Brit. But he\u2019s just a lovely human being, so optimistic and warm and funny. In a way, \u2018The Martian\u2019 is the truest representation of his personality he\u2019s ever put on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much like Weir\u2019s novel, \u201cThe Martian\u201d is an unlikely mix of gearhead sci-fi and rousing adventure. Matt Damon stars as an astronaut left behind on Mars after a failed mission who manages to make contact with NASA on Earth, alerting the world that he\u2019s still alive and would like to come home as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
The problem is how to get him there. One of the pleasures of Weir\u2019s novel, which was self-published in 2011 and then sold to Crown Publishing two years later for more than $100,000, is that the book was grounded in precise physics, orbital mechanics and computer science, which don\u2019t necessarily translate to the movie screen.<\/p>\n
While writing the screenplay, Goddard was attracted by the challenge of how to transform the technical jargon into cinematic images without losing their MacGyver-esque kick.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first responsibility is to make a good movie,\u201d he says. \u201cYou treat the book as a resource. Andy\u2019s brain is so massive, and he\u2019s so good with the science, that I trusted him blindly. I would craft the scenes, and then I would give them to Andy, and he would tell me where I screwed up. Any time I would press the bounds of scientific reality, he would pull me back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same thing happened after Goddard began collaborating with Scott.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy biggest worry on this movie is that it wouldn\u2019t make sense to the average viewer,\u201d Goddard says. \u201cBut then you see what Ridley can do visually, and it all works. We just pulled big chunks of dialogue out of the script and just let Ridley tell the story. It made more sense to see this stuff than to hear people talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of the science in \u201cThe Martian\u201d would have worked if the filmed wasn\u2019t anchored by an actor who the audience would instinctively care about. The casting of Damon was the stroke of genius that completed the puzzle: He was the human face to Scott\u2019s formidable special-effects wizardry.<\/p>\n
The actor says the role presented him with a new sort of challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to be easy-going and charming and likable on-screen, but it\u2019s a whole other thing to do all that by yourself,\u201d Damon says. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things that scared me about the project but also excited me about it. It felt like a risk. But that risk gets mitigated by the fact that one of the five great directors of all time is standing five feet away from me the whole time. Also we had other stories we cut away to, like NASA on Earth or Jessica Chastain on another mission. When Tom Hanks did \u201cCast Away,\u201d there was nothing to cut to. It was just him on the island.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Martian\u201d marks the first time Damon has worked with Scott, and he says there\u2019s one thing that distinguishes the creator of \u201cBlade Runner\u201d and \u201cGladiator\u201d from all the other filmmakers he\u2019s worked with.<\/p>\n
\u201cRidley is similar to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg and Francis Coppola in the important ways: He\u2019s really collaborative and welcomes everyone\u2019s ideas. His ego isn\u2019t tied to the work; it\u2019s all about the best idea winning.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he\u2019s different in that he shoots four cameras at a time, which is crazy for a guy who is as visual as he is. It\u2019s amazing that he can get four beautiful Ridley Scott frames simultaneously. I\u2019ve never seen anyone do that. And what that means for an actor is that if you get the scene right once, you\u2019ve got it covered from four different angles, so you\u2019re done. It\u2019s a treat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ridley Scott has been working in film and television for 40 years, but he says there have only been two times when a \u201creally great\u201d script landed on his desk. \u201cThe first one was \u2018Alien,\u2019\u201d Scott says. \u201cFive other directors had passed on it because of the violence and the creature popping out of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26761"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}