A bizarre bit of news, one that sort of belies any sort of understanding commentary at this point. BBC and other sources are reporting that Tony Scott, director of The Hunger, Top Gun, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Spy Game, Domino, Unstoppable and many other flashy hollywood studio action thrillers, and brother and producing partner of Ridley Scott, jumped from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, California, to his death just after noon on August 19th. His body was recovered shortly thereafter and a suicide note was found in his office.
Crazy.
FYI, the large greenish bridge has been featured prominently in films such as William Friedkin’s To Live and Die In L.A., Michael Mann’s Heat and McG’s Charlie’s Angels.
If true, I am speechless. He always came across as a happy person in interviews.
This kind of caught me off guard, since I was away from home and was just reading random tweets. I actually had to search a bit to get the exact details.
A very sad, shocking bit of news. I can’t say I’m a fan of his movies (I kinda like Domino though lol) but you can’t say this ISN’T sad!
This is a major bummer! I always look forward to the next Tony Scott film and really love his back catalog. He’ll be missed in our household. Sadness.
http://letterboxd.com/andrew_james/list/films-of-tony-scott-3/
This is the saddest fucking news.
His kids are really young.
Saw this on Facebook last night, and yeah, totally shocked. Won’t say I’m a fan of all of his films, but I love True Romance unconditionally. Really surprising and sad news.
Very shocked as well, but we never know what is going on in people’s personal lives or minds, of course, that can lead them to take such drastic actions. He will definitely be missed. I still watch True Romance at least once a year.
I looked at Tony Scott’s filmography and, while I’m familiar with many of his films, I’ve only actually seen 3: Top Gun, The TakIng of Pelham 123, and Unstoppable.
His particular style can be irksome, but I love plenty of his films. The Last Boyscout is so ridiculous, but a lot of fun to watch. Man on Fire has Denzel as a complete badass, probably his most badass role to date. Spy Game was fun in its seeing Robert Redford and Robert Redford Jr. (Brad Pitt) together. In fact, I’m a fan of almost all of his films until right around 2005′s Domino.
I truly am surprised at the lack of love for Scott’s films. Sure there are some clunkers in there (Pelham and Unstoppable), but he went all out with his action stuff and really made things fun I think. My top ten (of the 16 I’ve seen) in the list above are pretty solid pieces of entertainment!
I actually haven’t watched Unstoppable, but despite the sounds-so-boring premise, I’ve heard surprisingly only great things. Maybe I’ll finally check it out in his honor.
I really liked Unstoppable. It’s a heck of a good time.
Correction: I’ve only seen 4. Missed Enemy of the State on my first skim.
This is truly sad news.
I fondly remember seeing “Enemy of the State” and “True Romance” in theatres when they were released and enjoying them both. They both have great re-watch value.
Our family saw his last film “Unstoppable” in the theatre and thought it was a pretty solid ‘popcorn movie.’ Even though Denzel may have been phoning in his performance, the shots of the out-of-control train were tense, exciting and we were engaged the entire time. (The side story between the Chris Pine character and his wife was stupid.)
The Scott brothers are also such a huge producing presence in both TV and movies. My favourite network drama that Scott Free produces is “The Good Wife”.
Wow, what a loss.
I remember seeing Denzel talk about Unstoppable in an interview and how Tony had been passionately pursuing the project for quite some time, despite the apathy shown by studios for it. Even Denzel was reluctant and kept telling Tony he didn’t want to do it. Finally, according to Denzel, he was so tired of being asked to do it by Tony, he just agreed to it.
Can’t believe this news. Jesus.
Farewell then, the Last Boy Scout. Lighting up a big, fat stogie in your honour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBM6QkG0xeY
Follow-up to this story: ABC is reporting that Scott was recently diagnosed with inoperable Brain Cancer.
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=17039434
Still very sad news, but it puts the event into a bit more context.
Just sad
RIP Mr. Scott.
THINGS have been updated again, saying that reports of Tony Scott having Inoperable Brain Cancer are NOT TRUE.
Media. Sheesh. ABC erroneously reported about the cancer thing (ABC has done this before – with TDKR shootings). I believe they’ve changed their stance from “He had cancer” to “the family is unaware if he had brain cancer”.
The biggest thing that has blown my mind is that the director of the gothic and off-beat movie The Hunger, followed it up with Top Gun. I never realized until his death that they were the same director.