Ridley Scott may be planning to make Alien prequels for as long as the world will let him, and he’s suggesting that his long-teased Gladiator sequel might actually happen, but apparently he still has time for a more low-key, prestige-friendly project on top of that sillier, more crowd-pleasing stuff. According to Deadline, Scott is “finalizing plans” to direct All The Money In The World, a drama film about the kidnapping of oil dynasty heir John Paul Getty III. The plot will apparently focus on Gail Harris, the boy’s mother, who tried to convince his famously miserly grandfather to pay the ransom. Eventually, after receiving the boy’s ear in the mail, the elder Getty caved and paid the kidnappers a fraction of the $17 million they initially demanded.
Deadline says Angelina Jolie has been approached to play the mother, but scheduling didn’t work and Scott is now trying to “lock down” Natalie Portman for the role—which seems to indicate that he and the studio think this movie could be a big deal. Scott is also looking for a “big star” to play the jerk grandfather, with Deadline‘s sources saying he met with Jack Nicholson.
All The Money In The World is apparently going to be Scott’s next project, which means his adaptation of Don Winslow’s The Cartel will be pushed back. Also, though Deadline doesn’t mention this, FX and Danny Boyle were developing a TV miniseries about this exact topic last March. According to a more recent report from Collider, though, Boyle’s series will now have a much wider scope, covering 50 years of history across five seasons, with only the first one focusing on the Getty kidnapping.