‘Gladiator II’ DP John Mathieson & Podcaster Fall On Swords For Botched Edits That Insulted Ridley Scott

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: A serious case of Thanksgiving indigestion was caused yesterday by caustic comments attributed to Gladiator II cinematographer John Mathieson against the film’s director Ridley Scott on The DocFix Documentary Storytelling Podcast.

Today, both the DP and the podcaster today are each eating a bit of crow here on Deadline. Mathieson regrets an interview about his illustrious career done last March whose edit made him seem to savage his director, when a two-hour interview got condensed to 30 minutes.

It made it appear Mathieson leveled disparaging comments about Scott, when he was actually talking about the industry in general, but it sounded like he said the director took a “lazy” approach to the epic sequel they did together that has been critically acclaimed and has so far grossed over $300 million worldwide and might finally get Scott that elusive Best Director Oscar.

Mathieson was Scott’s DP on the first Gladiator, as well as Hannibal and Kingdom of Heaven. It was Scott’s Alien that terrified the DP and became a career inspiration.