His brother, Tony, also a director, started a film production company with Scott in 1968, the year he left the BBC. He started by developing TV advert - most notably the Hovis advert in 1974. Scott then decided to move to Hollywood to pursue his big screen dream.
His first big film was released in 1977, called 'The Duellests'. It won an award at the Cannes Film Festival, but didn't make a big commercial impact. It was, however, enough to get Scott noticed.
His first major film was 'Alien', in 1979. He was offered several jobs at the time, but after seeing how big 'Star Wars' had become, he decided to enter the sci-fi market. It was an 'effect' film - one that uses special effects wherever it can, and this seemed to work, as it earned over $100million in the box office.
'Blade Runner' came along in 1982, and crashed at the box office - it didn't make as much as expected. Scott put this down to it being rush-released, so created some 'director's cuts', and since then, it has received a mass cult following, and has been voted one of the greatest films of all time.
In 1984, Scott was approached to create the advert to launch the Apple Macintosh, merely entitled '1984'. They had nearly $1m to spend, and it was only broadcast on TV twice. Despite this, the ad has been voted the best of all time.
After some box office failures, Scott decided to try and stop getting stereotyped as the sci-fi/fantasy genre director. 'Thelma & Louise', in 1991, reignited Scott's media reputation. After another failure, he decided to take a 4-year hiatus.
It wasn't until 2000, when Scott released 'Gladiator' that his reputation as one of the great directors came about. It was massively successful, earning over $450million at the box office. He was then asked to direct 'Hannibal' in 2001, which followed 'Gladiator', and also raised over $350million. Scott was beginning to gain a title of having 'gold dust in his camera.'
In the same year, 'Black Hawk Down' was released, and earned, again, over $200million - Scott has earned nearly $1billion dollars in the space of 18 months. 2005 saw the release of 'Kingdom of Heaven', a film about the crusades. Just like his previous 3 films, most of it was filmed in Morocco, and earned over $200million. In 2007, he released 'American Gangster, based on the true life story of a drugs gang. Again, this earned over $200million at the box office.
Over the next couple of years, Scott will release 'Robin Hood', and 'The A-Team', plus an 'Alien' prequel, and a film linked to the 'Red Riding' trilogy. These films should prove that Sir Ridley Scott is one of the best directors of modern times.
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