Caffeinated Clint
Tony Scott – in many cases, his brother Ridley too; since they co-owned a prod co – had at least a dozen film projects he had hoped to make at one stage or another. With the filmmaker’s untimely death, he won’t unfortunately get to play his part in the execution and conception of the following features.
Top Gun 2
Scott had been working diligently on a sequel to “Top Gun” for the past twelve to eighteen months. With the screenwriters – Peter Craig, and before him, Christopher McQuarrie – he had been paying regularly visits to Naval Bases, researching some of the new flying contraptions and advancements in aerial technology since the release of the 1986 original. Scott was very enthusiastic about the project, trumpeting the excitement of including the Navy’s killer robot drones in the film alongside classic fighter jets, like the one Tom Crusie’s character piloted in the first film. Scott was a lock to direct the picture, and had courted Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer into reprising their roles from the earlier films, alongside a soon-to-be-chosen young ensemble.
Lucky Strike
Another project Scott was indisputably excited about; the thriller would’ve potentially teamed Mark Wahlberg and Vince Vaughan as a DEA agent and drug-dealer, respectively, who are forced to team up. The film would’ve been a return to the type of entertaining two-handers that Scott made a name for himself with, like “True Romance”, “Crimson Tide” and his last picture, “Unstoppable”.
The actioner, from “Expendables” hub Emmett/Furla Films, was written by Henry Bean.
Narco-Sub
With his “Crimson Tide” still standing as one of the better submarine movies of the past couple of decades, Scott wanted to make a movie to surpass his own. This one wouldn’t have been a flag-flying military hero movie though, it’s screenplay tells of the underwater transport of drugs from Latino America to the United States. The script was penned and co-developed with “Safe House” scribe Davis Guggenheim. Simon Kinberg, of “Mr & Mrs Smith” fame, served as a producer on the project, along with 20th Century Fox’s Tom Rothman.
The Wild Bunch
Scott had seemingly grown more and more interested in rebooting the classics in recent years. He has been intermittingly involved in a remake of Walter Hill’s “The Warriors”, but in more recent times had expressed interest in redoing Sam Peckinpah’s classic western. Brian Helgeland, the Oscar-Winning scribe behind noir crime piece “L.A Confidential”, had written a bloody good screenplay for it too, according to insiders.
24 : The Movie
Scott had expressed interest in bringing Jack Bauer to the big screen, but when the studio pushed the start date back, the filmmaker seemingly went on to work on other things. He remained attached for a brief time but dropped off, letting the long-gestating film take on the hit series get itself organized (which it still isn’t).
No doubt Fox would’ve been back to re-court Scott when they got it together though.
How cool would a Tony Scott-directed “24” movie have been? Stylish, to say the least.
Hell’s Angels
A biker thriller, about the war between two rival gangs – one of whom was the titular group , was high-up on Scott’s to-do list.
It’s said that Scott was waiting for the in-demand Jeff Bridges to find some time in his schedule to play Hells Angels ringleader Sonny Barger. The “TRON Legacy” headliner was pretty solid-booked at the time the project started gathering steam – late in 2011 – so chances are the film would’ve still been a good year or so off from going into pre-production.
Mickey Rourke was also circling at one stage, likely in the role of the rival gang leader.
The script, by Scott Frank, fixed on the motorcycle gang war but also a friendship that developed between Barger and a young motorcycle mechanic drifter (Shia LaBeouf, also attached to another Scott film, albeit one that fell by the wayside, “The Associate”, being the favourite to play the part).
Nemesis
This was something Scott was interested in doing at one stage, though I’m not sure where it was at at the time of his death.
Fox was producing the feature film adaptation of the Mark Millar/Steven McNiven graphic novel, and were pretty keen on having Scott add ‘director’ to his other commitments on the film, including producing it.
The film, a twist on the ‘superhero’ genre, told of a costumed villain who was hellbent on getting revenge on those who wiped out his parents.
