Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was an English film director and producer. He made his theatrical film debut with The Hunger (1983) and went on to direct highly successful action and thriller films such as Top Gun (1986), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Days of Thunder (1990), The Last Boy Scout (1991), True Romance (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) and Unstoppable (2010).
Scott was the younger brother of film director Ridley Scott. They both graduated from the Royal College of Art in London, and were among a generation of British film directors who were successful in Hollywood having started their careers making television commercials. In 2010, they received the BAFTA Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment.
Early life
Scott was born in Tynemouth, at the time in Northumberland, now in North Tyneside, North East England, the youngest of three sons of Elizabeth (née Williams) and Colonel Francis Percy Scott, who served in the Royal Engineers. Dixon Scott, a grand uncle, was a pioneer of the cinema chain, opening cinemas around Tyneside. One Tyneside Cinema, in Newcastle, is the last remaining newsreel cinema operating in the United Kingdom. Tony was a pupil at Rosebank School in Hartlepool, West Hartlepool College of Art and graduating from Sunderland Art School with a fine arts degree. At the age of 16, he appeared in the short film Boy and Bicycle, Ridley's directorial debut (he was 23). He was a player of Stockton Rugby Football Club's junior Colts team in the 1960s, and later became the club's patron.
Tony Scott continued his studies in art in Leeds after failing to gain admission to the Royal College of Art in London (he would succeed in a later attempt). In 1969, he made a short film based on the Ambrose Bierce story "One of the Missing". As Ridley had previously cast him in a film, Tony reciprocated by giving his brother a role in the production. "The film cost £1,000", he recalled in April 2012. While at the Royal College of Art, where he was taught by Raymond Durgnat, he starred in "Don't Walk", a film by fellow students Hank Onrust and Richard Stanley. The film credits state it was "made for BUNAC by MARCA films at the Royal College of Art". Again following in Ridley's footsteps, Tony graduated from the Royal College of Art, although he intended to become a painter. Their eldest brother Frank had earlier joined the British Merchant Navy.
Film career
Commercials
The success of his elder brother's fledgling television commercial production outfit, Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), drew Tony's attention to film. Ridley recounted, "Tony had wanted to do documentaries at first. I told him, 'Don't go to the BBC, come to me first.' I knew that he had a fondness for cars, so I told him, 'Come work with me and within a year you'll have a Ferrari.' And he did!" Tony recalled, "I was finishing eight years at art school, and Ridley had opened Ridley Scott Associates and said, 'Come and make commercials and make some money' because I owed money left and right and centre." After the feature film successes of fellow British directors Hugh Hudson, Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne and his elder brother during the late 1970s, all of whom had graduated from directing advertising commercials, he received initial overtures from Hollywood in 1980. His eldest brother Frank died, aged 45, of skin cancer during the same year.
Early films
Scott reflected on his career in 2009:
Scott persisted in trying to embark on a feature film career. Among the ideas interesting to him was an adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire then in development. MGM was already developing the vampire film The Hunger, and hired Scott as director in 1982. Despite starring David Bowie, Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve, and having elaborate production design, it failed to find an audience or to impress the critics although it later became a cult favourite. Finding few film opportunities in Hollywood over the next two and a half years, Scott returned to commercials and music videos.
In 1985, producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer collaborated with Scott to direct Top Gun, having been impressed by The Hunger, and a commercial he had done for Swedish automaker Saab in 1983 featuring a Saab 900 racing a Saab 37 Viggen fighter jet. Scott, initially reluctant, finally agreed to direct Top Gun. While the film received mixed critical reviews, it was a box office smash, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1986, taking in more than $350 million, and making a star of its young protagonist, Tom Cruise. Labelling Top Gun "the key 1980s movie made by the British ad invasion", Sam Delaney of The Guardian writes, "By the mid-80's, Hollywood was awash with British directors who had ushered in a new era of blockbusters using the crowd-pleasing skills they'd honed in advertising. The vast resources and freedom made available to ad directors during advertising's boom era during the 1970's enabled them to innovate and experiment with new techniques that weren't then possible in TV or film."
Hollywood success
Following the stellar success of Top Gun, Scott found himself on Hollywood's A-list of action directors. His next feature, Revenge (1990), a thriller of adultery and revenge set in Mexico, starred Kevin Costner, Madeleine Stowe and Anthony Quinn. Once again directing Tom Cruise, Scott returned to the Simpson-Bruckheimer fold to helm the big-budget racing film Days of Thunder (1990). Scott later stated that it was difficult to find the drama in racing cars in circles, so he "stole from all race movies to date ... then tried to build on them." Scott's next film was the cult action thriller The Last Boy Scout (1991) starring Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans and written by Shane Black.
In 1993, Scott directed True Romance costing just $13 million, from a script by Quentin Tarantino. The cast included Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Tom Sizemore, Chris Penn, Val Kilmer, James Gandolfini and Samuel L. Jackson. Although it received positive reviews from Janet Maslin and other critics, it earned less than it cost to make and was considered a box office failure, although it has since attained cult status. In 1996, Scott directed The Fan, starring Robert De Niro, Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin and Benicio del Toro. His 1998 film Enemy of the State, a conspiracy thriller, starred Will Smith and Gene Hackman, and was his highest-grossing film of the decade. In 2006, he contributed voice-over to a song called Dreamstalker on Hybrid's album I Choose Noise; Scott collaborated with Hybrid on several films through their mutual friend, the highly successful film score composer Harry Gregson-Williams.
In 2005, Tony Scott directed Domino, starring Keira Knightley. While notable for its use of experimental film techniques, it was drubbed by critics and rejected by audiences. In autumn 2006, Scott again worked with Denzel Washington, this time on a sci-fi action film, Déjà Vu. The two collaborated again on The Taking of Pelham 123, a remake of the 1974 film of the same title, and which also starred John Travolta. It was released on 12 June 2009. In 2009, Tony and Ridley Scott were executive producers for The Good Wife, a legal drama television series.
In 2010, the Scott brothers produced the feature film adaptation of the television series The A-Team. The same year, Scott collaborated again with Denzel Washington on Unstoppable, which also starred Chris Pine, and hit the screens in November.
Shortly before his death, Tony Scott produced Coma, a medical thriller miniseries, the Coca-Cola short film The Polar Bears and the thrillers Stoker and The East, the latter two with his brother, Ridley.
Unrealised projects
Tom Cruise was with Scott just two days prior to the director's suicide, scouting locations for a sequel to Top Gun, scheduled for production in 2013. In December 2012, Paramount announced that the project was officially cancelled, but they would go ahead with a 3D IMAX remastering of the original Top Gun, which was released on 8 February 2013. In June 2013, it was confirmed by Bruckheimer that Top Gun 2 had been greenlighted once again, with Joseph Kosinski announced as the project's new director in June 2017. The film, Top Gun: Maverick, was released on 27 May 2022, and was both a critical and financial success, and is the second-highest grossing film of 2022. Top Gun: Maverick was posthumously dedicated to Scott.
At the time of his death, Scott was also slated to direct Narco Sub, from a script by David Guggenheim and Mark Bomback, about "a disgraced American naval officer forced to pilot a sub carrying a payload of cocaine to America", and the action film Lucky Strike, with Vince Vaughn slated to star. Scott also considered a remake of the classic western The Wild Bunch (1969), and an adaptation of the comic book limited series Nemesis by Mark Millar.
Directing style
Katey Rich of Cinema Blend wrote that Scott had a "trademark frenetic camera style", which Scott spoke about in June 2009, in reference to The Taking of Pelham 123: