Several Said “No” To Directing Ridley Scott’s Masterpiece THELMA & LOUISE Before Legendary Filmmaker Made It
Ridley Scott Came to Thelma & Louise After A Few “No’s”
One of the most groundbreaking movies of all-time was 1991’s Oscar-nominated Thelma & Louise yet it almost wasn’t Ridley Scott’s project to direct.
Ridley Scott is in the news these days for the delay of his Bee Gees biopic and for helming the well-received sequel, Gladiator II, but recently, it was made known that the great director almost didn’t make Thelma & Louise himself. Anyone who loves great movies knows that the 1991 Scott movie paved the way for future women-led projects and that the picture was nothing short of a masterpiece. Scott says people had “problems with the women,” meaning the two lead characters referred to in the classic movie’s title. When one thinks about the poor choice of words those folks had, it is certain that the directors who rejected Thelma & Louise left the movie in the hands of the right filmmaker. It is, simply put, a masterpiece that still holds up today.
For those who haven’t seen it, Thelma & Louise tells the powerful story of a pair of women who take a trip on their own together and get in trouble with the law when one of them shoots a man when he attempts to rape the other one. This road trip picture was a groundbreaking look at how women could be viewed in society who face circumstances that are beyond their control. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis both received Oscar nods for Best Actress for their portrayals of the film’s title characters. The film co-starred Brad Pitt as a hunky hitchhiker who gets to know one of our ladies a bit better in the film.
The reasoning behind the rejection of the project by other filmmakers is beyond absurd. The two central women in Thelma & Louise are victims of situations that commonly affected women at the time of the film’s release. The movie still holds up today and is a portrait of two ladies who had to take extreme measures to escape a situation which they had no control over. Harvey Keitel was also in the movie as an authoritative figure who takes a liking to the women and tries to help the cops take them in the right way. The ending that was used in the film changed the way we view motion picture conclusions forever.
Ridley Scott received an Oscar nomination for directing Thelma & Louise which proved he was the right man for the job. I remember listening to Z-100 when I was a teenager in 1991 and heard the DJ say, in so many words, that the ending of the movie was highly unexpected and it was certainly a real game changer at the time the movie was initially unveiled. If, as Scott reports, five people rejected directing Thelma & Louise, it was possible those filmmakers didn’t have the maturity to capture the zeitgeist movie of the time period it was made. Scott was certainly the man for the project and his film is a true testament to brave and daring quality film-making which we need more of today.
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