The cast of ‘The Martian’ at the film’s premiere (Getty Images)

With 1978’s monster-thriller Alien and 1982’s neo-noir epic Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott helped set the tone for more than 30 years’ worth of dark, gritty, and thought-provoking science-fiction films. After three decades of working on everything from historical epics to crime capers, he returned his roots with 2012’s Alien prequel Prometheus, and now, the 78-year-old British filmmaker continues his own person sci-fi revival with The Martian, the highly anticipated adaptation of Andy Weir’s hit 2011 novel.

The film stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, a botanist and astronaut who’s assumed to have died on Mars after a wild storm forces his crewmates to abort their mission and head back to Earth. But Watney manages to survived — and once he wakes up, he has to find a way to survive on the barren planet and also contact NASA, which must decide how to bring him home. What follows is a mix of ingenuity, perseverance, and fervently focused determination — all traits that Scott himself has demonstrated on such films as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and Thelma & Louise.

Scott spoke with Yahoo Movies in New York on Monday to discuss The Martian, his Blade Runner follow-up, the Prometheus sequel, and more.

A big plot point in the film is Matt Damon’s character, Mark Watney, working to make water on the barren planet. But, as it turns out, NASA just announced that they actually found water on Mars.

I knew that months ago. When I first talked to NASA, we got into all kinds of stuff and I said, “So I know you’ve got down there massive glaciers.” And he said, “Yeah, that the massive white thing [on the surface of Mars] that gets covered with dust, we think that’s ice.” And I said, “Wow! Does that mean there was an ocean? Are we right now what Mars was 750 million years ago?” And they went, “Uh, good question.” So they want to go up there and find out.



The Mars you depict is so vast and barren. You shot in Jordan and Turkey, but how much of the Mars set did you build physically, and how much of it was green-screen?

The desert [in Jordan] was virgin, [and] the rocks are spectacular — I’d compare it to Monument Valley. It was absolutely marvelous. We hit it great because it was only 70 degrees as opposed to 120 [degrees]. It looked great, but I wanted it to be more terracotta red. I love to color grade [adjust the color of the picture on screen]. It’s the final act on my film. I literally sit there with a technician artist and we grade the g—amn movie. It’s a lot of knobs and twisting. You see the whole thing come alive. And by then, I’ve put in all the skies. Every sky shot has a trail of dust going through it.

Do you like to build as much as you can still?

I love to. Because I’m still an art student at heart [Editor’s Note: Scott studied at the Royal College of Art].

Could most filmmakers get away with making these kinds of elaborate real sets these days, or is it just too expensive?

Provisionally, [lowering costs with green screen] was the intention. Now digital effects are more expensive, in my opinion. There’s a lot of fumbling and muttering about going back to building the sets. I build as much as possible. On Gladiator I built 40 percent of the stadium, full-scale. And I saved money by not building the top tier of the stadium. We digitally went in and mapped it, used wireframe to fill in the fifth tier. It’s painting digitally.



Our stage in Budapest [for The Martian] was bigger than Pinewood. We had a brand new green screen going 65 feet up to the gantry. I put in a habitat there, I put in a rover there, and I’d already positioned them in the actual Wadi Rum against the rocks. So the guys have sampled the desert with tracking shots in the whole valley. So if he walks out one way, they can track him and build the whole [desert from footage].

Have you considered using virtual reality for a film?

You have to go for it. You’ve got to, you’d be stupid not to.

Would you like to do one?

I’m in one now — I shouldn’t say which [movie]. People say, “You can’t have the theater with a room full of people with helmets on.” Therefore, it points to me as probably a domestic experience, where you can sit in a room like this and [walk] through a whole universe by yourself, and then pass it on to your family. Or get two or three helmets and do the same thing. Though you’d walk into each other, so you better go in another room.